UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

AT    LOS  ANGELES 


THE   LAND   WE   LIVE   IN 


From  a  pfyyto^  ibpyri^ht^  hf   R.  If.   Rffd 


The  moose  call 


THE  LAND  WE  LIVE  IN 

T'he  Book  of  Conservation 

BY 

OVERTON   W.   PRICE 

WITH  A   FOREWORD 
BY 

GIFFORD    PINCHOT 

ILLUSTRATED    FROM    PHOTOGRAPHS 


9  J    u  o 

J      J        3        3 

^   >      »  3    9 

»  3  •> 


•       /    :.  ^  :>  J  a  J      *  »     *  ^ 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  AND  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,   1911 
By  Small,   Maynard  and   Company 

(incorporated) 


Entered  at  Stationers^    Hall 

Second  printing,  July,   191  2 
Third  printing,  September,   1 9 14 
Fourth  printing,  November,   1916 
Fifth  printing,  October,  19 17 
Sixth  printing,  March,   1 919 
Seventh  printing,  August,  19 19 


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•  •        •    •  •  • 


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•      •         ...♦••      .     ,• 


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THE    UNIVERSITY     PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,    U.  S.  A. 


MC 


FOREWORD 

NO  people  are  prouder  of  their  country  than  we 
Americans,  but  very  few  of  us  have  any  real  knowl- 
edge about  the  three  million  square  miles  which  we 
call  the  United  States.  Yet  there  are  very  few  stories  so 
Interesting  and  so  well  worth  hearing  as  the  story  of  what 
there  Is  In  the  land  we  live  in. 

When   iVIr.   Price  was  kind  enough  to  let  me   read  the 

Jj  manuscript  of  his  book,  I  did  so  with  the  keenest  Interest, 

(J\  at  first  because  he  is  an  old  friend,  but  afterward  because 

^  the  book  itself  held  my  attention  with  uncommon  power. 

U'  Indeed,  I  have  never  seen  so  good  a  statement  of  the  great 

f^)  Conservation  problem  as  this. 

<       It  tells  hut  half  the  story  to  say  that  this  is  an  admirable 
.  book  for  boys  and  girls.     If  I  may  judge  from  my  own  ex- 
.,  perience,  it  is  about  as  good  for  grown-ups  also.     Most  of 
[^  our   boys   and   girls   already   understand   that   this   is   their 
rv  country  just  as  much  as  It  Is  the  country  of  their  fathers  and 
r>  mothers.      But  that  is  not  the  whole  truth.     For  this  country 
_    of  ours  belongs  far  more  truly  to  the  boys  and  girls  than 
it  does  to  us  older  people.     They  will  live  in  it  and  enjoy 
It  longer  than  we  shall;    and  everything  that  happens  in  it, 
every  bit  of  waste,  and  every  saving  of  waste,  will  affect 
their  lives  more  than  It  does  ours.    We  are  only  the  trustees, 
taking  care  of  the  country  for  them  until  they  are   ready 
to  take  care  of  it  themselves.     And  when  that  time  comes, 
they  will  then  become  in  their  turn  what  we  are  now  —  trus- 
tees for  those  who  are  coming  afterward. 

vii 


VI 11 


FOREWORD 


It  is  peculiarly  appropriate  that  Mr.  Price  should  have 
written  this  book.  His  experience  has  been  exactly  what 
he  needed  to  fit  him  for  the  task- 
Mr.  Price  is  a  forester,  and  was  for  many  years  my  right 
hand  in  the  Forest  Service.  Indeed,  if  credit  could  be  al- 
lotted justly  for  work  done,  I  believe  it  would  be  found 
that  he  had  more  to  do  with  the  success  of  the  Service  than 
I  had.  In  addition  to  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  whole 
country  acquired  in  the  Forest  Service,  Mr.  Price  has  been 
associated  with  the  Conservation  movement  from  its  very 
beginning.  It  was  with  him  that  I  discussed  it  first  after 
the  idea  had  occurred  to  me,  and  from  that  time  to  this 
little  has  happened  in  Conservation  which  has  not  profited 
by  his  wide  knowledge,  remarkable  powers  of  organization, 
and  unusual  executive  ability.  As  a  member  of  the  National 
Conservation  Commission,  Secretary  of  its  Section  of  For- 
ests, and  once  more  the  right  hand  of  its  Chairman,  and  as 
Vice-President  of  the  National  Conservation  Association,  he 
has  had  and  has  used  to  the  full  an  unrivaled  opportunity  to 
apply  the  foresight  and  training  he  acquired  in  Forestry  to 
all  phases  of  Conservation.  His  scientific  accuracy  is  the 
guarantee  for  the  accuracy  of  this  book. 

Personally,  Mr.  Price  is  so  warm  a  friend  of  mine  that 
what  he  says  about  mc  in  his  book  must  be  taken  with  many 
grains  of  salt.     He  is  strongly  prejudiced  in  my  favor. 

I  hope  this  admirable  book  may  have  what  it  deserves; 
the  widest  circulation  among  the  young  people  of  America. 
All  the  boys  and  girls  who  read  it  while  they  are  young  will 
be  more  useful  to  the  Nation  because  of  it  when  they  grow 
up;    and  unless   I   am  misiakcn,  they  will  thoroughly  enjoy 

reading  it  besides. 

GiiroKD  Pixciiur 

Grey  Towers,  Milford,  Pcnn. 
June  8,  191 1. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Page 

Foreword vii 

Chapter  One. — America  Three  Hundred 

Years  Ago 

This  Country  Then 3 

What  We  Owe  the  Settlers .  7 

The  Indians  Then  and  the  Indians  Now 9 

A  Picture  to  Remember 14 

The  Journey ' 16 

Home  Again 18 

Chapter  Two.  —  America  To-day 

Another  Journey .  19 

The  Open  Country 23 

We  Must  Live  Within  Our  Means 32 

Not  only  the  Settlers  were  Blind 33 

Chapter  Three.- — -How  the   Forest  is  Used, 
Abroad  and  at  Home 

In  Europe 35 

Other  Kinds  of  Forests      .....  40 

In  the  Southern  Pine  Belt 43 

Among  the  Douglas  Fir 47 

Logging  in  the  North  Woods 54 

The  Same  Nearly  Everywhere 60 

We  Must  Grow  Timber  or  go  Without 6^ 


TABLE   OF   CONTEXTS 

Chapter  Four.  —  Ix  a  National  Forest 

Page 

A  Busy  Job 67 

The  Cowboy 72 

The  Timber  Sale jj 

How  the  Fires  Start ,    .    .  80 

Fighting  the  Fire 87 

Brave  Ranger  Pulaski 90 

Fire  Not  the  Only  Enemy 93 

The  Forester .    ,    .    .  94 

Private  Forests 94 

Teaching  the  People 96 

Two  Great  Tasks 98 

Chapter    Five.  —  The  Farmers'  Farms  and  The 

Nation's  Farm 

Cotton  and  Corn 100 

Boys  the  Best  Farmers 105 

North  and  West 107 

We  Must  Grow  what  Food  We  Need 113 

The  Public  Domain 115 

The  Sheephcrders  and  the  Cowboys 122 

Stock  Followed  Buffalo 127 

The  Range  is  Being  Wasted 129 

The  Work  of  the  Reclamation  Service 132 

Three  Great  Problems 138 

Chapter  Six, — The  Treasures  Underground 

In  a  Coal  Mine 143 

Waste  of  Life  and  of  Coal 148 

The  Bureau  of  Mines 152 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

Chapter   Seven.  —  Wild  Life 

Page 

The  Roe  Deer  and  the  Ranger 159 

A  Royal  Hunt 162 

The  Young  Germans  in  New  York 163 

How  the  Game  has  Dwindled      167 

Predatory  Animals  Cost  us  Dearly     ........  177 

We  Can  All  Help  to  Save  the  Game 182 

Chapter  Eight. — The  Rivers 

One  More  Journey 184 

The  First  Sign  of  Use 188 

Who  will  Control  the  Water  Powers.'' 193 

Other  Great  Uses .    ....    .    .    .  197 

Rivers  are  Roads 201 

Chapter  Nine.  —  What  This  Means  to  Us 

The  Merchant's  Son 206 

The  Farmer's  Son 208 

Why  Taxes  are  Higher 209 

The  Nation  and  the  Government 211 

Chapter  Ten.  —  How  We  can  Help 

Knowing  the  Game 213 

Learning  the  Game 214 

Organization  Counts 216 

The  Railroad 217 

The  Police  Squad 217 

We  Can  All  Help 219 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 
Chapter  Eleven. — This   is   Conservation 

Page 

The  Ship  of  State 221 

A  Good  Fight 224 

Chapter  Twelve.  —  An    Inventory    of    Natural 

Resources 

Forests 228 

Lands 232 

Waters 234 

Minerals , 235 

Index ....    =    ......    ,    .      239 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  moose  call Frontispiece 

Page 
The   lighthouse   which    the    settlers    built    at    Cape   Henry, 

Virginia 2 

The  early  pioneers  are  gone,  but  the  "Musher"  in  far-off 

Alaska  is  the  pioneer  of  to-day 4 

In  a  salmon  cannery.     Fish  now  yields  us  fifty  million  dollars' 

worth  of  food  a  year.         7 

The  happiest  Indians  are  working  their  own  little  farms    .    .  10 

The  Indians  have  had  a  very  sad  story 1 1 

An  Indian  burial  scaffold 12 

The  Roosevelt  dam  was  built  chiefly  by  Indian  laborers  .  .  14 
The  arrow  maker.    The  arrows  with  which  the  Indians  used 

to  kill  their  game  are  now  made  and  sold  as  curios.    ...  15 

Through  the  busy  New  York  streets.     Fifth  Avenue     ...  20 

A  floating  hotel,  nearly  two  hundred  yards  long 22 

Each  with  its  little  orchard      24 

Charred  skeletons  along  the  track 25 

In  a  jumble  on  the  ground 26 

Over  there  is  a  bare  hillside 29 

The  revenge  taken  by  the  river 30 

A  big  block  of  old  forest 36 

The  valleys  make  a  carpet  of  many  colors 37 

Some  of  the  roofs  are  thatched  with  straw 38 

Now  the  trail  leads  us  by  a  forest  nursery 39 

The  ruined  castles  on  its  banks 41 

An  old  turpentine  "orchard"       44 

The  log  loader  at  work 45 

In  the  beautiful  Cascade  Mountains      48 

Pulling  logs  down  the  chute 5° 

There  are  two  men  felling  a  Douglas  fir 5^ 

We  begin  to  meet  sleds  piled  high  with  logs 55 

The  camp  is  the  loggers'  home 56 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Dinner  in  a  North  Woods  logging  camp ,  57 

We  might  go  into  the  Lake  States 58 

Getting  cypress  logs  out  under  difficulties 59 

Japan  is  growing  trees  to  plant 62 

Norway  is  overcutting  her  forests,  like  ourselves 61 

India  buys  more  wood  than  she  sells 63 

We  go  in  over  a  carefully  laid-out  trail 66 

"I  believe  there  are  a  few  back  East,"  sa}'s  the  rancher. 
In  the  Appalachian  National  Forest,  which  the  Govern- 
ment is  buying  as  a  great  reservoir  of  timber  and  water.  68 

They  are  fastening  wire  to  the  trunks  of  trees 70 

"Trails  and  telephone  lines  are  the  best   safeguards   against 

fire" 71 

"The  Forest  Supervisor  puts  the  cattle  on  the  lower  slopes 

where  they  belong" 73 

"He  puts  the  sheep  on  the  high  ranges  where  they  do  best"  74 

"Straight  to  the  packing  house  in  Chicago  or  Kansas  City"  75 

"You  will  pass  a  hunter's  cabin" 76 

We  leave  the  cowboy  reluctantly 'j'j 

The  brush  is  burned  when  the  ground  is  moist 78 

Or  after  the  first  snowfall 79 

He  looks  long  at  something  we  do  not  see         82 

Then  he  unfolds  his  map,  and  follows  its  lines  intently      .    .  84 

"Fire  just  this  side  of  Saddle  Mountain" 85 

Half  an  hour  brings  us  to  the  ranger's  cabin 86 

A  forest  blasted  where  it  stands 88 

Cotton  like  snow  over  the  ground       loi 

Spindling,  yellow-green  corn  stalks 102 

The  farmer  counts  more  than  the  land      103 

Without  good  roads  crops  cannot  be  hauled  to  market      .    .  105 
Good   roads  no  less  than  good   crops   are  needed   to   make 

prosperity 106 

Even  the  boys  and  girls  suffer  from  bad  roads     ......  107 

Where  children  walk  dry-shod  and  easily  to  school     ....  108 

Ranches  where  the  use  of  fertilizers  is  as  yet  unknown       .    .  109 

How  some  pioneer  farmers  in  the  Southwest  bring  in  the  hay  no 

Where  farming  is  a  struggle  for  existence in 

The  handiwork  of  the  man  who  is  a  good  citizen  and  a  good 

farmer      112 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Remember  Europe,  with  its  beautiful  villages 114 

The  soil  was  meant  for  many  men  to  live  on  and  improve    .  115 

Like  green  garlands  on  a  dull  carpet      117 

A  loneliness  which  cannot  be  told  in  words       118 

More  and  more  cattle 119 

The  cattle  graze  in  open  order 120 

A  sheepherder's  burros.     One  is  eating  a  newspaper!     ...  121 

Their  lithe  figures  a  straight  line  from  heel  to  head  ....  122 
There  is  much  that  is  stirring  about  the  life  of  mounted  men. 

A  cowboy  of  Argentina 123 

A  bucking  mustang 124 

In  the  sun-baked  corral 121; 

Roping  and  throwing  a  calf  for  branding      126 

Branding  a  calf      127 

Roping  picked  cattle  from  a  herd 128 

Heavy  with  fruit    ...■ 131 

We  see  the  sluices  from  which  the  land  is  flooded 132 

We  come  to  a  great  reservoir 133 

We  would   find   many   such   great   dams,    some   completed, 

others  now  being  built 135 

They  have  tunnelled  through  a  great  mountain 137 

Alining  copper,  a  mile  underground 140 

At  the  mouth  of  a  copper  mine • 142 

A  boy  driver  and  his  mule  in  a  coal  mine 146 

In  one  of  the  "rooms"  of  a  coal  mine 147 

After  the  explosion.     At  the  mouth  of  a  coal  mine,  after  a 

disaster  which  killed  356  men      150 

Waiting.     The  crowd  near  the  mouth  of  the  shaft  after  a 

disaster  in  a  coal  mine 151 

Mining  gold  in  Alaska 154 

How  the  trained  men  of  the  Bureau  of  Mines  are  equipped  to 

save  life  in  mine  disasters 153 

The  midnight  reflections  of  a  white-tail  deer 157 

A  long  swimx.  A  caribou  crossing  a  lake  in  Newfoundland  .  158 
The   end.      Mortally   wounded   during   a   snow   storm,   this 

deer  was  not  found  by  the  hunter 160 

A  happy  family      161 

Not  sure  what's  going  to  happen 165 

Find  three  wild  turkeys! 166 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

A  baby  moose 167 

The  antelope  are  now  so  nearly  gone  that  some  States  forbid 

their  being  killed  at  all 168 

In  the  velvet.     Mr.  W'alcott  photographed  these  elk  in  the 

early  morning,  when  they  were  investigating  his  camp       .  169 

What  kindness  will  do 171 

Catching  the  Bronx  Zoo  crocodile       170 

Alore  kindness.     The  man  feeding  the  bear  cubs  is  a  Forest 

Supervisor  in  charge  of  one  of  the  National  Forests    ...  172 
The  man  holding  the  ^Manatee,  or  sea-cow,  is  Air.  A.  \V. 
Dimock,  to  whom  all  Americans  owe  a  great  debt  for  his 
wise  and  vigorous  efforts  for  the  preservation  of  the  wild 

creatures 173 

Forty  years  ago  there  were  five  million 174 

A  moose  at  bay 174 

A  wild  goat  at  home 175 

A  bear  swimming  a  stream       176 

IVIr.  Eugene  S.  Bruce  and  his  bear.     Mr.  Bruce  caught  this 
cub  with  his  hands,  in  the  California  mountains.     It  is 

now  in  the  Washington  Zoo 177 

Not  much  of  him  individually 179 

An  old  buffalo  bull         180 

True  sport.     The  tarpon  has  better  than  an  even  chance  181 

A  fine  mountain  sheep      182 

The  elk  greatly  need  better  protection       183 

Our  river  first  drinks  from  melting  snows 185 

Resting  in  deep  pools 187 

It  is  a  great  pipe  line 189 

The  power-house 190 

Others  depend  on  dams  for  the  storage  of  water 191 

The  existence  of  Los  Angeles  depends  on  water  power  ...  192 

Power  is  hidden  in  every  waterfall 193 

Sometimes  water  used  to  develop   power   never   returns    to 

the  streams  again 196 

The  walrus  are  being  killed  off 197 

A  female  seal  and  her  pup 198 

Seal  on  the  rookeries.    The  groups  are  called  "harems,"  the 
small  seal  are  the  females,  and  the  big  seal  are  males,  and 

known  as  the  "harem  masters". 200 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Where    thousands    ran    before.      Can  you   find   the  leaphig 

salmon? .      199 

Tonging  for  oysters 201 

An  oyster  stunted  by  mussels  which  eat  its  food 202 

A  planted  oyster  shell .      203 

Learning  the  game.    A  school  garden  is  a  good  place  to  begin     215 

Ramming  their  way  down  the  field 216 

On  the  Xew  York  Ghetto.  These  boys  are  being  taught  in 
school  about  the  waste  of  natural  resources,  and  how  it 

may  be  prevented.     Are  you  .^ 218 

With  every  white  sail  set 223 

Some  nations  are  poor  like  some  children.  Countries  which 
have  wasted  their  resources  are  dependent,  and  must  buy 
elsewhere.    If  they  lack  money,  then  they  must  go  without     225 

Its  green  forests  clothing  the  mountains 226 

Struggling  to  win  back  the  land.    The  dark  strips  are  young 

trees,  which  are  slowly  covering  an  old  burn 230 

Forestry  in  a  National  Forest.     Forestry  is  practised  on  less 

than  one  per  cent  of  the  forests  privately  owned     ....      231 
Alany  million  acres  of  desert  can  be  made  productive  by 

irrigation 234 

In  China,  where  now  the  mountain  forests  are  gone,  the  soil 
can  be  held  only  by  terracing      ............      236 


The  Land  We  Live  In 

CHAPTER    I 

AMERICA  THREE    HUNDRED  YEARS  AGO 

FIRST  we  must  know  what  kind  of  country  was  this 
America  of  ours  when  the  settlers  landed  from  their 
battered  wooden  ships,  no  bigger  than  our  ferry 
boats,  on  the  shores  of  what  are  now  Massachusetts  and 
Virginia,  and  began  the  struggle  to  build  their  homes.  At 
Cape  Henry  on  the  Virginia  coast,  they  built  a  lighthouse, 
and  made  it  so  strong  that  it  is  standing  to-day,  after  facing 
storm  and  sunshine  for  more  than  two  hundred  years. 

From  your  window  you  can  look  out  and  see  houses 
where  your  friends  and  schoolmates  live,  and  big  buildings 
and  pavements,  and  perhaps  street  cars  and  automobiles. 
Did  you  ever  stop  to  think  what  hardships  the  settlers 
suffered  so  as  to  make  these  things  possible  for  us  —  how 
they  had  to  clear  the  land,  build  log  cabins,  make  trails 
and  roads,  and  bridge  the  rivers?  The  splendid  story  of 
their  lives  in  the  wilderness  is  more  interesting  than  any 
novel  one  can  read,  and  it  is  a  story  we  all  ought  to  know, 
because  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  fight  they  made,  we  might 
not  be  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

They  are  all  gone  now  —  those  brave-hearted  men  and 
women  who  left  their  own  country  for  this  one  because 
they  wanted  to  be  free.  We  can  see  only  in  paintings  how 
they  looked,  and  what  kind  of  hats  and  clothes  they  wore. 
Maybe  if  we  should  ask  our  grandparents,  they  would  tell 


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AMERICA   THREE   HUNDRED   YEARS   AGO     3 

us  stories  which  their  own  grandparents  told  them,  of  some 
of  our  forefathers,  who  built  log  cabins,  and  killed  deer  and 
bear,  and  fought  Indians,  and  lived  the  vigorous  life  of  the 
pioneer. 

We  must  not  forget  that  there  were  boys  and  girls  then 
as  now,  only  they  played  different  kinds  of  games  from 
those  we  play  nowadays.  At  first  there  were  no  schools  for 
them  to  go  to.  Their  parents  taught  them  at  home,  and 
they  did  not  have  many  books.  They  read  at  night  by  the 
light  of  pine  splinters,  or  of  queer  little  candles. 

Those  boys  and  girls  stayed  pretty  close  at  home,  for  it 
was  not  safe  to  stray  too  far  from  the  little  cabins,  because 
of  the  wild  animals  and  the  Indians.  Even  when  the  set- 
tlers went  to  church  on  Sunday  the  men  often  carried  guns 
with  them  for  fear  of  the  red  men.  They  were  strange, 
heavy  guns,  with  cup-shaped  muzzles,  not  at  all  like  the 
trim  rifles  we  have  to-day. 

We  are  going  to  take  a  trip  with  the  settlers.  But  first 
we  need  to  know  what  kind  of  country  we  shall  find,  when 
we  leave  the  little  clearing  around  the  cabins. 


This  Country  Then. 

First  of  all,  there  were  the  forests  which  not  only  cov- 
ered the  mountains,  but  stretched  all  the  way  from  Maine 
to  Florida  and  from  the  east  coast  to  the  great  western 
prairies  which  begin  about  one-third  of  the  way  between 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the  Pacific.  At  first  the  setders 
thought  America  was  all  forest,  and  it  was  not  for  many 
years  that  their  journeys  into  the  plains  and  deserts  of  the 
far  West  taught  them  that  this  was  not  true. 

This  great  American  forest  spread  over  nearly  half  the 
United  States.  It  was  alive  with  game,  for  what  the 
Indians   killed   made   little    difference    even   when   the    ani- 


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AMERICA   THREE    HUNDRED    YEARS    AGO     5 

mals  were  easy  to  slaughter.  This  the  Indians  did  with 
the  buffalo,  by  driving  great  herds  over  high  cliffs,  or  by 
killing  them  one  by  one.  The  deer  and  bear,  and  the  moose 
and  elk,  as  well  as  the  smaller  creatures,  were  all  plentiful. 
You  know  the  wild  animals  in  any  region  are  limited  to  as 
many  as  it  can  best  support.  Animals  of  any  one  kind  are 
not  killed  out  by  other  kinds,  because  they  have  certain  ad- 
vantages which  the  others  do  not  possess.  Nature  has  given 
keen  sight  and  strong,  sharp  claws  to  the  eagles,  great 
cunning  and  speed  to  the  foxes,  a  wonderful  gift  of  scent 
to  the  deer,  and  sharp  hoofs  and  powerful,  shovel-shaped 
horns  to  the  moose,  as  weapons  against  their  natural  ene- 
mies, such  as  the  sharp-toothed  wolf,  and  the  slinking, 
crouching,  cat-like  puma. 

In  those  days  there  were  not  only  many  more  wild  animals 
than  there  are  now,  but  they  were  much  more  savage.  The 
bear,  the  great  gray  timber  wolf,  and  the  other  big,  fierce 
creatures  had  not  fully  learned  to  fear  man.  Even  as  late 
as  fifty  years  ago  there  are  true  stories  of  grizzly  bears 
which  actually  drove  miners  and  frontiersmen  out  of  camps 
in  the  mountains.  To-day  one  hardly  ever  hears  of  bears 
attacking  men,  except  when  wounded  or  penned  in  by  dogs, 
or  when  a  she-bear  fights  to  protect  her  cubs.  For  the 
settlers  it  was  a  different  story  —  their  fear  of  wild  beasts 
came  only  second  to  their  fear  of  wild  Indians. 

In  those  days  a  journey  through  the  great  green  forests 
and  down  the  beautiful  clear  rivers  which  the  forests  make 
must  have  richly  repaid  the  settlers  for  all  they  endured. 
The  dense  forests  through  which  they  struggled  were  valu- 
able not  only  for  the  timber  in  the  pines,  the  oaks,  the  great 
tulip  trees,  and  all  the  other  beautiful  hardwoods,  but  they 
stood  upon  land  which  would  make  splendid  farms  after 
the  forests  were  gone.  But  in  those  days  there  were  no 
farms,  except  the  little  clearings  the  Indians  made  to  grow 


6  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    L\ 

their  corn,  and  the  settlers'  scanty  fields,  from  which  they 
had  driven  back  the  forest  with  the  axe  and  lire. 

There  were  the  minerals  —  gold,  copper,  silver,  and 
above  all,  coal,  which  is  now  more  necessary  to  man's  exis- 
tence and  to  his  happiness  than  the  other  three  together. 
Some  few  of  the  settlers  knew  a  little  about  precious  miner- 
als, and  they  were  delighted  with  what  they  found,  but  the 
value  of  the  coal  they  did  not  realize  at  all.  Stories  went 
back  to  England  of  the  great  treasures  underground  in  the 
New  World;  but  exen  the  wildest  of  these  stories  fell  far 
short  of  describing  the  mineral  wealth  of  America. 

The  rivers,  the  settlers  knew,  were  splendid  streams  of 
clear  water,  many  of  them  big  enough  to  carry  ships.  Of 
course,  the  settlers  looked  upon  the  streams  simply  as  roads 
to  travel  over,  as  sources  of  water  to  drink,  and  as  natural 
drains  for  the  country.  The  most  far-sighted  among  them 
did  not  dream  of  the  great  power  locked  up  in  the  rivers. 
Even  to-day  we  are  just  beginning  to  understand  how  the 
streams  can  be  harnessed,  and  the  force  of  fast-flowing 
water  used  to  turn  wheels  to  make  electricity,  which  can  be 
used  in  a  thousand  ways  to  do  man's  work  for  him. 

In  the  days  of  the  settlers,  all  that  was  known  about 
water  power  was  that  water  could  be  made  to  turn  a  mill 
wheel,  either  when  it  fell  on  top  of  the  wheel,  or  rushed 
against  it  at  the  bottom.  We  have  all  seen  such  mills,  but 
we  are  likely  to  see  much  fewer  of  them  as  we  grow  older, 
because  they  are  the  most  wasteful  way  of  using  water 
power. 

I  hen  there  were  the  fish  —  the  food  fishes  of  the  salt 
water,  and  the  salmon  and  trout  and  bass,  and  the  many 
other  useful  fresh-water  fish.  Manv  of  us  ha\  e  not  stopped 
to  think  that  fish  from  American  waters  now  vield  about 
fifty  million  dollars'  worth  of  food  every  year.  Of  course, 
there  were  manv  more  fish  than  there  are  now,  because  we 


AMERICA   THREE    HUNDRED    YEARS    AGO     7 

not  only  have  been  using  them  ever  since,  but  using  them 
so  wasteful] y  that  some  kinds  have  almost  completely  dis- 
appeared. 

7  he  climate  was  the  most  important  resource  of  all;  the 
rain  that  gives  life  to  all  green  things,  and  the  sunshine 
which  keeps  them  alive  and  growing.     Some  of  you  know 


In  a  sahnon  cannery.     Fish  now  yield  us  fifty  million  dollars' 

worth  of  food  a  year. 

what  the  lack  of  rain  means  —  in  the  great  West  where 
there  are  thousands  of  square  miles  of  rich  soil,  on  much 
of  which  nothing  is  growing  except  cactus  or  sagebrush, 
simply  because  it  rains  very  little  or  never  rains  at  all. 

JJ'hat  Jf'e  One  the  Settlers. 
Perhaps  when  one  goes  into  our  own  Western  country 
on  his  first  trip  —  not  the  Western  country  seen  from  the 
car  windows,  but  the  real  West,  way  back  in  the  mountains 


8  THE    LAND    WE   LIVE    IN 

where  the  trains  don't  run  —  he  feels  just  a  httle  as  the 
settlers  felt  when  they  first  saw  America.  But  after  all,  wild 
as  the  West  still  is  here  and  there,  one  does  not  lose  the 
feeling  that  within  twenty-five,  or  fifty,  or  even  a  hundred 
miles,  are  towns  and  stores  and  all  the  things  that  make 
life  easy  and  comfortable. 

The  settlers  had  nearly  three  thousand  miles  of  rolling 
ocean  between  them  and  home  and  safety.  In  those  days 
this  meant  a  voyage  of  about  two  months.  Around  them 
were  great  forests  which  reached  they  did  not  know  how 
far.  They  were  afraid  of  the  Indians  and  of  the  wild 
animals,  and  they  always  had  that  fear  which  is  the  worst 
of  all:   of  the  things  imagined  but  not  seen. 

Men  who  have  lived  in  the  wilds  will  tell  vou  that  there 
Is  no  dread  which  tests  the  courage  so  severely  as  the  dread 
of  the  unknown.  The  settlers  were  like  children  compared 
with  the  men  of  to-day.  They  believed  in  witches  and  in 
all  sorts  of  strange  creatures  which  never  existed.  So  they 
had  to  fight  against  the  fear  of  horrible,  unnameable  ene- 
mies and  dangers,  which  all  of  us  suffered  when  we  were 
little,  and  it  was  dark  or  lonely,  and  there  were  no  grown 
folk  about. 

Of  course,  the  settlers  suffered  greatly  from  not  having 
the  tools  and  stores  and  equipment  they  needed.  They  came 
from  England,  which  was  even  then  an  old  country  full  of 
people.  They  knew  very  little  more  about  how  to  take  care 
of  themselves  in  the  woods  in  a  new  country  than  a  group  of 
city  boys  would  know,  if  thev  had  to  go  back  into  the  moun- 
tains in  the  West,  or  c\cn  in  the  Adirondacks,  or  the  South, 
and  live  in  camp  without  any  one  to  show  them  how.  But 
they  had  a  high  purpose,  and  courage  which  did  not  fail. 
So  they  won  through,  and  founded  this  Xation  and  earned 
a  greater  reward  tban  \\e  can  c\cr  pav.  All  we  can  do 
is  to  remember  them  and  to  learn  all  we  can  about  them. 


AMERICA    THREE    HUNDRED    YEARS    AGO     9 

The  Indians  Then  and  the  Indians  Now. 

Of  course,  Indians  were  the  worst  danger.  When  Co- 
kimbus  discovered  America  the  Indians  were  friendly.  They 
thought  the  ships  with  their  great  white  sails,  like  big  birds, 
were  strange  visitors  from  another  world,  and  it  is  said 
that  in  the  beginning  the  Indians  brought  fruits  and  other 
gifts  to  the  discoverers.  But  later  when  wicked  white  men 
had  deceived  them  and  cheated  them,  the  Indians  grew  less 
and  less  friendly,  until  there  was  war  between  them  and  the 
settlers.  So  they  came  to  look  upon  white  men,  and  white 
women  and  children,  as  enemies  to  be  killed  in  the  cruel 
Indian  ways. 

In  those  days,  when  a  man  traveled  any  distance  from 
his  own  little  settlement  he  was  seldom  safe  from  lurking 
bands  of  redskins  who  kept  themselves  hidden  in  the  woods 
—  no  one  knew  just  where.  Now  and  then  the  Indians 
were  more  daring,  and  would  attack  the  settlements.  Some 
of  the  bravest  fights  in  history  were  made  by  those  staunch 
men  and  women,  armed  with  flintlock  muskets,  who  held 
their  little  log  houses  for  many  days  together  against  the 
painted,  naked  Indians  who  swarmed  in  the  woods  around. 

Many  people  think  there  were  a  great  many  more  Indians 
then  than  there  are  now.  But  those  who  have  studied 
Indians  and  their  history,  and  who  know  most  about  them, 
tell  us  that  there  are  almost  as  many  Indians  in  the  United 
States  to-day  as  there  ever  were.  The  difference  Is  that  to- 
day the  Indians  are  held  on  what  are  called  "  Indian  Reser- 
vations," which  are  usually  great  stretches  of  mountain 
land  in  the  West,  given  them  by  the  Government.  Were 
the  Indian  Reservations  all  together,  they  would  be  nearly 
twice  as  big  as  the  State  of  Virginia.  On  these  Reservations, 
there  are  about  three  hundred  thousand  Indians,  and  their 
number  is  slowly  growing  larger. 


The  happiest  Indians  arc  wuikinu  their  own  little  farms 


l-ium  photo.  (Opyiight,  lyoO,  by  R.  A.  TJnossd 

The  Indians  have  had  a  very  sad  story 


12 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


The  Indians  call  the  President  of  the  United  States  "  the 
great  white  Father,"  because  our  government  does  every- 
thing for  them  that  a  good  father  does  for  his  own  children. 
It  teaches  them  in  Indian  schools,  and  feeds  and  clothes  them 
until  they  are  able  to  earn  their  own  living.     The  happiest, 


From  plh 

An  Indian  burial  scaffold 


'//.  liioy.  hy  R.  A.  J'lirossel 


thriftiest  Indians  are  those  who  arc  working  their  own 
little  farms  which  the  Government  gave  them,  as  many 
thousand  of  them  are  now  doing. 

If  this  were  a  book  about  Intlians,  there  would  be  many 
interesting  things  to  tell  you.  We  are  apt  to  think  of 
Indians  only  as  savage  red  men,  who  like  to  scalp  people 


AMERICA   THREE    HUNDRED   YEARS   AGO     13 

and  to  torture  them  in  other  ways,  and  who  deserve  no  kind- 
ness from  white  men.  We  have  all  heard  the  story  of  the  old 
Indian  fighter  who  said  that  the  only  good  Indian  was  a  dead 
Indian;    and  probably  he  had  some  reason  for  saying  so. 

But  the  Indians  have  had  a  very  sad  story.  We  took  their 
country  away  from  them,  and,  while  we  tried  to  treat  them 
fairly  afterwards,  we  made  many  mistakes,  mainly  because 
we  did  not  understand  the  Indians  themselves. 

For  a  long  time  the  Government  made  the  same  kind  of 
blunders  in  handling  the  Indians  that  a  man  would  make 
who  had  taken  care  of  a  herd  of  quiet,  friendly  Jersey  cows, 
and  who  was  obliged,  without  any  other  training,  to  manage 
a  whole  zoo  full  of  lions  and  tigers  and  other  fierce  wild 
creatures.  It  would  be  hard  on  the  man,  and  it  would  be 
very  hard  on  the  beasts. 

The  Indian  did  not  take  to  the  white  man's  work  willingly, 
because  it  was  all  new  and  strange  to  him,  and  because  the 
spirit  of  work,  as  we  understand  it,  was  not  in  him;  but  he 
did  take  to  the  white  man's  vices,  especially  to  whiskey,  and 
for  many  years  what  people  had  come  to  call  "  the  Indian 
problem  "  looked  quite  hopeless,  although  the  Government 
went  on  spending  many  million  dollars  each  year  trying  to 
work  it  out. 

Now  we  have  men  in  charge  of  the  Indian  Office  at  Wash- 
ington and  of  all  the  Indians  and  their  Reservations,  and 
really  of  their  lives,  who  understand  the  Indians,  and  who 
are  working  the  Indian  problem  out  little  by  little,  but  surely. 
They  are  doing  it  by  treating  the  Indians  like  what  they 
really  are  —  like  children;  by  punishing  them  when  they  are 
bad,  and  praising  them  when  they  are  good,  and  by  being 
firm  and  patient  with  them,  and  by  protecting  them  so  far 
as  possible  from  wicked  white  men  who  would  steal  all  that 
the  Indians  have,  if  they  had  their  way.  Some  of  the  Indians 
are  fast  learning  the  white  man's  ways.     The  work  of  build- 


14 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


ing  the  great  Roosevelt  irrigation  dam  in  Arizona  was  done 
largely  by  Indian  laborers.  Lhis  dam  was  put  up  by  the 
Government,  to  supply  the  water  needed  to  turn  the  desert 
into  farms  in  that  dry  country.  The  Indian  builders  were 
Apaches,  who  used  to  be  among  the  most  cruel  and  the  most 


The  Rooscvcll  (Jam  was  built  chielly  by  Indian  laborers 

idle   of   all    Indians.      So   as   you   see,    the    Indian   problem 
is  difficult,  but  It  Is  far  from  hopeless. 


A  Picture  to  Remember. 

But  wc  must  not  forget  that  we  are  going  to  make  a  trip 
with  the  settlers.  And  wc  nuist  keep  a  clear  ]")Icturc  In  our 
minds  of  America  when  the  settlers  came  to  it. 

I  his   is   the   picture   we    arc   lca\'Ing — a    little   group   of 


From  photo,  copyright,  igio,  by  R.  A.  Throsscl 

The  arrow  maker.     The  arrows  with  which  the  Indians  used  to  kill 
their  game  are  now  made  and  sold  as  curios 


1 6  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    LN 

men  and  women,  the  men  dressed  in  queer  steeple-crowned 
hats  and  plain  gray  clothes,  and  the  women  in  clothes  no 
less  simple  and  serviceable  —  we  have  all  seen  pictures  of 
them  on  Christmas  cards  and  in  Thanksgiving  stories.  We 
see  these  first  Americans  living  in  clusters  of  rough  log 
cabins,  with  holes  cut  in  the  logs  to  put  their  muskets 
through;  and  around  the  cabins  a  narrow  strip  of  cultivated 
land  with  the  fire-scarred  stumps  still  sticking  in  it;  and 
back  of  the  clearing  always  the  great  forests. 

A  little  band  of  brave  men  and  brave  women  —  so  few 
that  altogether  they  would  not  fill  what  we  call  a  village 
to-day  —  and  around  them  stretches  a  vast  country  full  of 
undeveloped  riches,  offering  great  opportunities,  and  brist- 
ling with  obstacles  and  dangers  —  that  is  the  picture  which 
every  good  American  should  remember  always. 

The  Journey. 

But  now  we  must  get  ready  for  our  journey  with  the  set- 
tlers. It  may  have  been  planned  in  search  of  gold,  or  of  new 
lands  to  settle  upon.  But  it  is  more  likely  that  it  was  merely 
to  look  out  the  new  country  to  the  westward,  to  meet  what 
came,  to  come  to  hand  grips  with  the  unknown  face  to  face 
—  a  journey  made  in  the  spirit  of  the  true  adventurer. 

First  the  start  —  the  good-byes  at  the  cabin  doors,  the 
going  away  in  long  Indian  canoes  and  bateaux.  To  those 
who  were  left  behind  the  farewell  meant  no  less  than  it 
would  mean  to  \'ou  now  to  see  your  father  or  voui*  brother 
or  \()ur  friend  start  on  an  exploring  trip  to  the  frozen 
North  or  In  the  wilds  of  Africa.  It  was  said  to  men  whose 
return  ^-as  not  certain. 

And  so  they  leave,  paddling  and  poling  up  stream  from 
the  little  landing  until  the  bend  of  the  rl\er  hides  their 
laboring  figures. 

The  long  journey  has  begun.    Every  mile  of  it,  after  the 


AMERICA   THREE    HUNDRED    YEARS    AGO     17 

first  few  days,  is  through  an  unknown  country.  It  is  a 
journey  ever  westward,  first  up  the  broad,  placid  rivers 
which  wind  through  the  wide,  fiat  strip  along  the  coast,  then 
into  the  hills  which  lie  just  east  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains, 
and  then  up  and  among  the  mountains  themselves. 

Days  and  weeks  go  by,  but  the  travelers  never  see  a  clear- 
ing—  nothing  but  trees.  At  first,  the  ascent  of  the  river 
leads  them  through  great  stretches  of  open  pine  woods, 
where  the  sunshine  sifts  down  upon  the  red-brown  trunks. 
There  is  no  underbrush,  and  the  ground  is  grassy  or  cov- 
ered with  pine  needles.  This  is  cheerful,  easy  going,  for  the 
current  is  slow,  and  the  country  is  more  like  a  park  than  a 
wilderness.  Game  is  plentiful,  and  deer  are  easy  to  see 
and  kill  through  the  wide  openings  between  the  trees. 

Then  come  the  foothills.  On  clear  days  they  begin  to 
see  the  shadowy  blue  outline  of  distant  mountains.  The 
woods  are  changing  from  pine  to  oak,  ash,  tulip,  and^maple. 
In  the  coves  and  along  the  clear  rocky  streams,  the  beauti- 
ful rhododendron,  with  its  big  purple  blossoms,  reminds 
them  of  the  English  flower  gardens  they  used  to  know. 

The  hills  are  now  growing  higher,  and  the  slopes  steeper. 
The  mountains  are  no  longer  hazy  against  the  sky-line,  but 
loom  up  near  and  high  above  them.  The  trees  are  bigger, 
the  forest  is  darker  and  denser.  The  settlers  forsake  their 
boats,  for  the  rivers  are  no  longer  wide  and  placid,  but 
noisy  little  torrents  tumbling  down  the  dark,  narrow  valleys 
Into  deep  pools  where  the  big  trout  love  to  lie. 

The  settlers  climb  one  range  of  mountains  after  another, 
and  from  the  crest  of  each  they  look  westward  to  the  next, 
across  a  green  sea  of  tree  tops  in  between.  Never  a  sign  of 
life  but  the  wood  creatures  —  never  a  house  or  a  clearing  — 
always  the  same  great  green  mantle  of  forest  covering  hills 
and  valleys  and  mountains  to  their  crests. 

The  nights  are  raw  and  cold,  and  the  going  is  hard.    Be- 


1 8  THE    LAND    WE   LIVE    IN 

sides,  it  is  Indian  country,  and  the  thought  of  enemies  they 
know  are  near,  but  can  not  see,  is  always  heavy  upon  the 
settlers'  minds.  Every  day  has  its  fresh  difficulties,  like 
avoiding  or  holding  off  roving  bands  of  Indians,  killing 
meat  for  food,  and  working  out  the  best  course  for  the  next 
day's  travel.  The  well-earned  sleep  is  always  on  the  ground 
under  the  open  stars. 

The  crest  of  the  mountains  is  won,  and  the  streams  begin 
to  run  westward  instead  of  toward  the  east.  If  the  settlers 
are  so  lucky  as  to  find  friendly  Indians  from  whom  to  buy 
canoes,  or  are  themselves  equipped  to  build  them,  or  hew 
them  out  of  logs,  they  again  take  to  the  rivers.  If  not,  the 
slow  progress  afoot  through  the  trailless  forest  goes  on. 

At  last  they  stand  in  a  noble  valley,  and  beside  the 
broad,  splendid  river  flowing  through  it  —  the  "  Messa- 
sebe,"  as  the  settlers  called  the  Mississippi  by  its  true  Indian 
name. 

Home  Again. 

Three  months,  at  best,  brings  the  settlers  back,  bronzed 
and  corded  and  travel-worn.  They  wear  make-shifts  of 
buckskin,  their  beards  are  long,  and  their  bodies  are  bent  by 
the  toil  of  the  trail.  They  are  fewer  than  before,  and  they 
tell,  tenderly  as  only  brave,  big-hearted  men  know  how  to 
tell,  of  comrades  killed  by  Indians,  or  by  sickness  which  they 
lacked  medicine  to  cure. 

But  the  men  who  return  have  stirring  news  of  the  vast 
country  to  the  westward,  of  the  great  mountains  and  their 
minerals,  and  of  the  rich  black  soil  in  the  wide  valley  beyond. 
Ihe  stories  fire  the  listeners,  and  phms  arc  laid  for  new 
journeys,  :{nd  to  take  up  land,  and  for  treaties  with  the 
Indians,  under  which  men  may  live  in  peace  —  and  so  what 
wc  call  cixili'/arion  sprcails  c\'cr  westward  from  the  cabins, 
along  the  paths  first  trod  by  those  true  adventurers. 


CHAPTER    II 

AMERICA    TO-DAY 

NOW  we  are  going  to  take  another  trip  and  see  what 
has  happened  in  three  hundred  years. 
What  a  little  thing  now  is  a  trip  from  the  At- 
lantic coast  to  the  valley  west  of  the  mountains!  To-day 
one  can  cover  in  eighteen  hours  the  thousand  miles  between 
New  York  and  Chicago,  and  be  as  comfortable  as  in  one's 
own  home.  In  an  hour's  travel  over  the  smooth  roadbed, 
the  train  roaring  forward  at  a  mile  a  minute,  so  smoothly 
that  the  passengers  can  read  or  sew  or  sleep  or  dine  without 
difficulty,  we  go  further  than  the  settlers  went  in  a  whole 
week. 

A  week  for  them,  an  hour  for  us  —  a  week  full  of  hard- 
ships and  peril;  an  hour  of  rest  and  pleasure. 

Another  Journey. 

We  do  not  start  in  canoes  as  we  did  with  the  settlers,  or 
step  from  root  to  root  to  keep  dry  shod  as  we  trudge  for- 
ward over  the  moist,  mossy  forest  floor,  our  backs  bent  by 
the  packs  we  carry.  We  take  a  car  or  a  taxicab  through 
the  busy  New  York  streets  to  the  depot,  and  perhaps  we 
hurry  through  it  without  realizing  what  a  wonderful  build- 
ing it  is. 

It  covers  seventy  acres.  It  has  track  room  for  over  a 
thousand  cars,  and  any  one  of  the  hundreds  of  trains  which 
leave  it  every  day  would  hold  all  the  white  men  there  were 

19 


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3 
O 


AMERICA    TO-DAY  21 

in  America  three  hundred  years  ago.  This  depot  is  nearly 
two  hundred  feet  from  floor  to  roof,  and  i\ve  regiments  of 
soldiers  would  not  crowd  its  great  spaces. 

i\nd  so  we  make  our  start,  seated  in  a  luxurious  steel 
house,  which  is  what  the  modern  Pullman  car  really  is, 
leaning  against  yielding  cushions,  and  looking  through  plate 
glass  windows  at  a  more  interesting  moving  picture  than  we 
could  see  in  any  theatre.  There  is  no  interruption  to  change 
the  films;  and  then  the  picture  is  all  true. 

But  before  the  pictures  begin  we  pass  for  a  few  minutes 
through  utter  blackness,  after  leaving  the  great,  brilliantly 
lighted  station.  If  we  could  only  see  a  moving  picture  of 
what  is  happening  then,  it  would  look  something  like  this  — - 
first,  the  broken,  cliff-like  outlines  of  the  great  buildings  on 
Manhattan  Island  against  the  sky;  then  the  choppy  surface 
of  North  River,  roughened  by  the  breeze,  and  alive  with 
craft  —  toy-like  steam  yachts,  all  paint  and  brass  and  awn- 
ings; busy,  beetle-like  ferry  boats;  and,  maybe,  moving 
slowly  to  her  dock,  in  charge  of  several  bustling,  straining 
little  tug  boats,  is  one  of  those  floating  hotels,  nearly  two 
hundred  yards  long,  which  we  call  an  ocean  liner. 

Then  comes  the  hundred  feet  or  so  of  water  between  the 
surface  and  the  bottom,  with  a  life  of  its  own,  as  the  use 
of  hook  and  line  will  show  you;  then  the  mud  and  ooze  of 
the  river  bed;  and  underneath  it  a  tube  of  steel  stretching 
from  bank  to  bank  along  the  bottom.  In  that  tube  is  our 
train  and  ourselves,  and  perhaps  it  is  better  we  cannot  see 
it  all,  for  it  might  frighten  us.  But  really,  thanks  to  the  care 
with  which  the  wonderful  work  was  done,  we  are  just  as 
safe  as  if  we  sat  in  a  boat  above,  or  in  one  of  the  great  build- 
ings on  the  river  bank. 


AMERICA    TO-DAY  23 

The  Open  Country. 

The  tunnel  passed,  we  have  perhaps  twenty  minutes  to 
travel  before  we  get  beyond  the  zone  of  smaller  cities  which 
fringe  New  York,  and  out  into  the  open  country  from  which 
the  cities  are  fed. 

We  look  for  the  great  forests  the  settlers  knew.  They 
are  gone,  and  all  that  is  left  to  remind  us  of  them  are  little 
patches  of  trees  here  and  there,  on  rough  ground  and  in 
swampy  places  between  the  fields,  that  have  grown  up  since 
the  original  forest  was  cut  down.  Except  for  these  the 
country  is  all  farms,  each  with  its  little  orchard,  and  its  farm- 
house among  the  shade  trees,  and  the  great  barns  nearby. 

As  the  train  rushes  on  into  the  hill  country  we  see  many 
farms  whose  buildings  are  unpainted,  and  whose  puny  crops 
straggle  over  steep  hillsides;  now  and  then  we  catch  sight 
of  the  rock-strewn,  barren  acres  of  a  mountain  clearing, 
whose  owner  has  left  it  to  try  his  luck  elsewhere.  Dotted 
over  such  farms  are  often  patches  and  clumps  of  little  trees, 
which  are  the  advance  guards  of  the  returning  forest. 

Now  we  are  among  the  mountains.  We  see  much  more 
forest,  but  it  is  not  what  it  used  to  be.  Nearly  everywhere 
we  get  glimpses  of  the  cruel  work  of  forest  fire. 

Sometimes  the  charred  skeletons  of  trees  stand  along  the 
railroad  track,  the  soil  burned  to  a  crisp  beneath  them,  with 
the  raw  rocks  pushing  through  it.  Where  the  fire  ran  more 
lightly  the  big  trees  are  not  killed,  but  the  leaf  litter  is 
burned  up,  and  the  little  trees  are  all  dead.  Where  the  fires 
burned  many  years  ago  we  see  the  forest  making  its  brave 
struggle  to  win  back  the  land;  striving  for  a  foothold  among 
the  weeds  and  briers  in  the  first  round  of  a  fight  which  will 
take  a  hundred  years. 

As  the  train  rounds  a  sharp  curve,  we  pass  a  side  track 
on  which  stands  a  huge  freight  locomotive  with  a  long  line 


AMERICA    TO-DAY 


25 


of  cars  behind  it,  piled  high  with  lumber.  If  the  window  is 
open,  we  catch  the  clean,  wholesome  scent  of  the  sap  in  the 
new-sawn  boards. 

At  the  end  of  the  side  track  is  a  sawmill,  humming  music- 
ally as  the  great  saws  bite  their  way  through  the  big  logs. 
All  is  bustle.  Men  are  wheeling  lumber  in  little  handcarts 
from  the  tail  of  the  saw  out  into  the  piling  yard.    Other  men 


Charred  skeletons  along  the  track 

are  dumping  logs  from  flat  cars,  and  an  endless  chain,  with 
big  catches  like  fish-hooks  on  it,  is  hauling  them  up  into  the 
mill.  Other  men  are  loading  lumber  into  cars  on  the  siding. 
It  is  a  pity  we  have  n't  time  to  go  through  this  sawmill,  which 
would  be  well  worth  while,  but  we  can't  stop  now. 

Beyond  the  mill  the  train  passes  through  the  woods  from 
which  the  mill  is  fed.  Fire  has  run  through  many  of  the  old 
cuttings.  Looking  at  them  now,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  a 
beautiful  green  forest  ever  stood  on  the  land. 

Even  where  the  fire  has  not   run,   we   see   other  things 


26 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


which  are  not  good  to  see.  Tops  of  great  trees  are  lying  in 
a  jumble  on  the  ground,  the  path  of  their  fall  marked  by 
small  trees,  smashed  or  borne  down  with  them;  here  are 
stumps  two  or  even  three  feet  high,  each  with  perhaps  a  foot 
of  good  log  wasted  simply  because  the  loggers  were  too  lazy 
to  bend  their  backs  and  cut  off  the  trees  lower  down. 

If  the  train  were  not  going  so  fast,  we  could  see  that  not 


In  a  jumble  on  the  ground 

only  have  the  good  trees  been  cut  and  the  poor  ones  left,  but 
that  trees  of  the  best  kinds  have  been  taken  and  the  poorer 
kinds  left  standing  to  sow  the  seed  for  another  forest.  0\er 
there  is  a  cutting  in  which  the  big  oak,  ash,  hickory,  and  the 
basswood  have  been  taken,  but  the  dogwood  and  soft  maple 
are  still  there. 

But  now  tlie  train  is  running  through  broad  valleys  where 
the  land  is  in  meadow  or  pasture,  or  under  the  plough.  We 
see  many  farms  which  are  thrifty,  the  buildings  and  fences 


AMERICA    TO-DAY  27 

neat,  the  animals  in  the  fields  fat  and  happy  looking,  the  soil 
what  the  farmers  call  "  in  good  tilth  "  —  a  warm,  moist, 
fruitful  blanket  of  earth  in  which  to  sow  the  seed. 

But  not  all  the  farms  are  like  this.  Some  of  them,  with 
their  squalid  buildings,  rough-coated,  lean  horses  and  cattle, 
and  straggling,  stunted,  weedy  crops,  are  not  pleasant  to  look 
at.  On  such  farms  we  often  see  fields  which  evidently  have 
not  been  worked  for  many  years  —  neglected,  grown  up  to 
bushes  and  briers,  or  even  so  long  unused  that  there  are 
straggling  clumps  of  little  trees  here  and  there  —  fields 
whose  soil  has  been  so  completely  worn  out  that  it  no  longer 
pays  to  work  it  at  all. 

Without  slacking  speed  we  now  cross  a  stone  bridge  over 
one  of  the  great  rivers  which  the  settlers  had  to  wade  or 
swim. 

As  we  look  down  at  the  muddy,  sluggish  current,  and  at 
the  raw,  deep-cut  banks,  we  wonder  how  they  found  this 
river  beautiful.  It  is  hard  to  realize  that  when  they  saw  it 
its  waters  were  clear,  and  its  banks  were  made  lovely  as  well 
as  secure  by  great  trees,  with  a  dense  mat  of  underbrush 
beneath  them.  But  now  the  trees  have  been  stripped  away, 
and  we  can  almost  see  the  current  slice  off  and  carry  away 
the  soft  soil. 

As  we  follow  along  the  river,  we  come  to  places  where  it 
has  cut  through  its  banks  entirely  and  changed  its  bed,  or 
even  spread  over  wide,  flat  stretches  of  rich  soil,  turning 
good  farm  land  into  unsightly  sand  bars  and  hideous  patches 
of  sun-baked,  sun-cracked  mud.  When  we  saw,  back  in  the 
mountains,  how  fire  and  the  careless  use  of  the  axe  had  in- 
jured the  forests,  perhaps  we  did  not  realize  that  many 
miles  away  —  where  we  are  now  —  we  would  see  in  this 
great  river  the  direct  results  of  forest  destruction. 

Forests  are  to  streams  what  the  storage  battery  is  to  the 
electric  wire  —  the  source  of  useful  power,  and  energy,  and 


28  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

current  in  reserve.  Take  away  the  battery,  and  the  wire  is 
dead;  injure  the  battery,  and  the  current  loses  force  and 
permanence. 

When  the  rain  falls  on  a  forest,  it  spatters  against  the  roof 
of  leaves,  and  the  heavy,  hard-pounding  raindrops  are 
broken  up  into  a  fine,  soft  mist.  Any  one  who  has  stood 
under  a  tree  during  a  shower  does  n't  need  to  be  told  that. 
When  this  mist  reaches  the  ground  under  the  trees,  it  falls  on 
a  soft  bed  of  dead  leaves.  This  bed  has  a  wonderful  power 
to  soak  up  and  hold  water;  and  so  the  rain  soaks  slowly  into 
the  leaf  litter,  much  as  water  does  into  a  cloth,  until  it 
reaches  the  soil  beneath.  This  is  called  the  mineral  soil, 
because  it  was  made  by  the  gradual  wearing  away  of  rocks 
of  many  kinds,  which  took  more  years  than  we  can  count. 

The  water  slowly  works  on  down  through  this  mineral 
soil,  following  cracks  and  channels  already  worn  by  the 
action  of  water  for  thousands  of  years;  continually  starting 
new  channels  of  its  own,  joining  with  other  rivulets,  and  so 
forming  streams  and  even  rivers  underground.  It  is  these 
underground  waters,  finding  their  way  to  the  surface  on  the 
mountain  sides,  and  in  the  valleys,  which  make  springs. 

When  the  forests  are  gone,  all  this  is  changed.  The  sun 
beats  down  on  the  leaf  litter,  dries  it  up,  and  the  wind 
scatters  it,  until  only  the  dense,  mineral  soil  is  left,  which 
bakes  with  the  heat  until  it  is  sometimes  nearly  as  hard  as 
brick.  When  the  rain  falls  on  it,  very  little  soaks  in.  The 
rest  runs  off  down  hill  into  the  streams,  carrying  a  part  of  the 
soil  with  it.  We  can  see  this  going  on  in  many  places  from 
the  train.  Over  there  is  a  bare  hillside  with  great  raw  gashes 
and  gullies  worn  in  it  by  the  countless  little  torrents  of  muddy 
water  which  have  dashed  down  it  after  each  hard  rain  ever 
since  the   forest  was  destroyed. 

A  little  further  down  the  river  we  see  a  tangled  mass 
which   evidently  was  once   a   large   building  on   the   river's 


AMERICA    TO-DAY 


29 


bank.  But  the  river  rose  in  flood  a  few  years  ago  and 
swept  this  big  mill  away  like  a  match  box,  to  pile  it  up,  a 
useless  wreck  of  broken  timbers,  a  little  further  down. 

Below  where  the  mill  was  we  see  the  ruin  of  a  bridge. 
The  same  flood  which  took  the  mill  swept  out  the  bridge 
as  well. 

A  little  further,  just  where  the  valley  broadens  and  the 
river  banks  are  low,   we  pass   for  miles  through  a  sandy. 


Over  there  is  a  bare  hillside 

barren  stretch  which  must  once  have  been  farmed,  because 
we  see  fences  through  it  here  and  there,  and  also  an  occa- 
sional house.  But  there  are  no  cattle  or  crops  in  the  fields. 
When  the  river  was  last  in  flood  it  overflowed  its  banks 
and  spread  a  film  of  sand  over  this  rich  farm  land,  or 
washed  its  surface  soil  away  and  gullied  it  beyond  recovery. 

The  mill,  the  bridge,  and  the  rich  farms  are  the  revenge 
taken  by  the  river  for  what  men  did  to  the  forests  which 
used  to  feed  It. 

The   train   follows   the   river   a   long  way,    as   trains   so 


30 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


often  do,  because  the  river  has  cut  an  easy  path  to  follo^y 
through  the  hills,  and  we  come  before  long  to  another  mill. 
This  one  is  far  enough  from  the  bank  to  be  safe  even  from 
the  highest  flood.  It  is  a  great  building,  built  of  brick,  but 
it  has  no  smoke  stack.  Reaching  to  it  is  a  huge  pipe  line 
which,  if  we  had  looked  closely  about  ten  miles  back,  wc 
would  have  seen  leading  out  from  the  river,  at  the  head  of 


The  revenge  taken  bv  the  river 


a  long  chain  of  rapids.  This  is  a  power  mill;  one  whose 
work  is  done  by  bringing  to  bear  upon  great  turbine  en- 
gines the  force  of  the  water  that  runs  through  the  pipe. 
The  principle  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  old-fashioned  water- 
wheel,  but  the  water  power  is  much  more  effectively  used. 
When  this  mill  was  running  it  did  the  work  of  fifty  thousand 
horses.     Why  has  its  work  stopped? 

There  is  certainly  plenty  of  work  for  it  to  do,  and  it  must 
mean  great  waste  and  loss  to  leave  standing  idle  that  huge 
mass  of  costly  machinery. 


AMERICA    TO-DAY  31 

After  the  flood  In  the  spring  there  was  very  little  water 
left  in  the  watershed  of  the  river,  because  there  was  no 
forest  sponge,  like  the  one  you  read  about  a  while  ago, 
to  hold  it  back.  So  the  river  fell,  until  there  was  just  a 
little  trickle  down  the  pipe  line  —  enough  to  do  the  work 
of  a  few  thousand  horses  instead  of  fifty  thousand.  It  did 
not  pay  to  run  in  on  so  little  power,  and  the  mill  was  shut 
down.  So  you  see  that  floods  are  no  less  serious  than  the 
low  water  which  follows  them. 

But  there  is  still  more  to  see.  Further  down  the  river 
we  catch  a  glimpse  of  something  stretching  clear  across 
it.  It  can't  be  a  building,  for  it  is  level  with  the  water  In 
most  places,  or  only  a  little  way  above  it.  As  we  come 
nearer  we  see  that  It  is  a  tangle  of  logs,  all  mixed  together 
like  huge  jack-straws,  some  sticking  up  in  the  air,  others 
lying  flat,  but  all  wedged  so  tight  together  that  they  form 
practically  a  solid  mass  of  wood.  Evidently  they  have  been 
there  a  year  or  two,  for  the  bark  has  peeled  off,  and  some 
logs  are  cracked  open  from  the  heat  of  the  sun.  If  these 
logs  were  at  the  sawmill  a  little  further  down,  which  Is 
standing  idle  for  the  want  of  them,  they  would  be  worth 
a  lot  of  money.  As  it  is,  men  are  swarming  over  them, 
picking  out  a  log  here  and  there,  and  pushing  it  into  the 
shallow  current,  but  it  Is  slow  work,  and  the  logs  are  so 
water  soaked  and  sun  cracked  that  they  are  scarcely  worth 
saving.  When  they  were  put  In  the  water  to  float  them 
down  to  the  mill,  the  river  was  high.  But  all  the  water  ran 
off  quickly  because  there  was  no  forest  on  the  mountains; 
and  the  result  was  that  the  logs  stuck  on  the  shoals  In  the 
river,  jammed,  and  stayed  there.  Most  of  the  labor  spent 
In  cutting  them,  as  well  as  nature's  work  In  growing  them, 
is  wasted. 

There  are  other  things  we  might  see  from  the  car  win- 
dows, but  these   are  the  big  things.     We  cannot  see  how 


32  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

coal  Is  wasted  in  the  mines.  Nor  can  we  see  the  waste  of 
the  crops  grown  from  the  farm  and  the  forest,  or  the  waste 
of  timber  in  its  use. 


We  must  hive  within  our  Means. 

What  else  do  we  see  on  this  trip?  Houses  and  people, 
and  always  more  houses  and  more  people;  great  cities  in 
the  making,  and  great  cities  made  already;  factories  in 
the  towns,  factories  on  the  river  banks;  mills  sawing  trees 
into  lumber,  grinding  wheat  into  flour,  everywhere  wheels 
whirling  to  turn  the  products  of  forest  and  field  and  mine 
into  things  men  need  or  want. 

We  can  almost  see  it  grow,  this  great  nation.  Here  is 
a  thriving  village,  where  twenty  years  ago  was  a  farm; 
there  is  a  great  city,  where  twenty  years  ago  stood  a  vil- 
lage; here  is  a  railroad,  where  a  few  years  back  was  a 
country  highway;  there  a  great  factory,  giving  work  to  a 
thousand  pairs  of  hands,  where  used  to  stand  the  water- 
mill,  where  the  farmers  brought  their  sacks  on  horseback 
and  left  a  part  of  the  grain  for  toll. 

Now  there  are  in  America  nearly  a  hundred  million 
people,  while  at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  there  were  only 
thirty  million  —  that  is  how  this  nation  is  growing.  Nor 
has  it  only  grown  big  —  it  has  grown  great.  It  is  a  power 
in  the  world  we  live  in,  a  nation  with  the  greatest  present 
and  the  greatest  future  that  any  nation  ever  had. 

The  same  rules  govern  a  nation  that  govern  a  boy  or  a 
man.  If  the  boy  or  the  man  or  the  nation  spend  more  than 
they  earn,  they  do  not  get  on  and  up.  We  have  wasted  and 
we  go  on  wasting  so  much,  and  the  number  of  people  in 
America  is  increasing  so  rapidly,  that  we  are  fast  using  up 
what  we  have  instead  of  using  it  wisely. 

We  are  cutting  down  the  timber  nearly  four  times  faster 


AMERICA    TO-DAY  33 

than  it  is  growing  back  again;  we  have  enough  coal  in  sight 
to  hist  less  than  two  hundred  years;  the  time  will  soon  be 
here  when,  unless  we  are  more  thrifty  farmers,  our  soil 
will  not  grow  all  the  food  we  need. 


Not  only  the  Settlers  were  Blind. 

We  hav^e  learned  a  great  deal  since  the  days  of  the  set- 
tlers. We  know  as  much  more  than  they  knew,  about  mak- 
ing use  of  all  the  natural  wealth  around  us,  as  the  settlers 
knew  more  than  the  Indians  with  whom  they  fought.  It 
is  hard  for  us  to  understand  how  the  settlers  failed  to  see 
the  great  riches  all  about  them.  They  saw  the  game,  the 
cool  springs,  the  tall,  straight  trees  which  would  make  good 
house  logs,  the  warm,  sheltered  coves  which  would  make 
good  cabin  sites,  and  the  rich  ground  below  for  the  garden 
patch.  Further  than  that  they  could  not  see,  or  only  seldom 
saw. 

The  eyes  of  some  of  us  are  no  less  slow,  but  in  a  different 
way.  We  see  quickly  and  clearly  the  natural  wealth  not 
yet  developed  in  forests,  and  streams,  and  mines,  and  soil. 
We  look  eagerly  for  the  rich  veins  bearing  golci,  or  silver, 
or  copper,  because  we  know  that  men  and  money  can  be 
had  easily  to  develop  them  into  mines  which  will  soon  make 
us  rich.  We  see  the  great  prairies,  not  simply  as  places  for 
game  as  the  settlers  saw  them,  but  as  rich  soil  which  only 
needs  steam  plows,  and  harvesting  machines,  and  push,  and 
capital  to  make  us  rich  almost  as  quickly  as  the  mine.  We 
see  in  the  great  waterfall  not  merely  something  beautiful, 
but  we  see  also  the  chance  to  harness  it  by  pipe  lines  and 
turbine  engines,  and  make  it  produce  electricity  which  we 
can  sell  to  light  towns  and  run  street  cars,  and  which  will 
make  us  even  richer  than  the  mine  or  the  farm.  When  we 
look   at   the   big   trees,   which   took   hundreds   of   years   to 


34  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    LN 

grow,  we  do  not  see  house  logs  in  them;  we  see  saw  logs, 
and  a  harvest  of  dollars  from  the  lumber  which  the  saw 
logs  will  make. 

We  see  the  opportunity  to  turn  into  money  things  which 
we  did  not  produce,  and  which  will  be  needed  in  America 
as  long  as  men  live  within  it.  The-  millions  and  even  mil- 
lions more  of  the  hungry  mouths  and  the  empty  hands  of 
those  who  will  follow  us  we  do  not  always  see.  Some  of  us 
are  so  blinded  by  the  shimmer  of  the  easy  gold  to  be  had 
quickly  that  we  fail  to  remember  that  we  ourselves  will  cer- 
tainly feel  the  pinch  during  our  own  lives  if  we  do  not  stop 
wasting  what  we  find  and  putting  nothing  back. 

Of  course  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  that  a  nation  can 
ever  be  in  actual  want,  no  matter  how  much  it  wastes.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  see  sometimes  why  the  man  in  the  next  street 
wears  threadbare  clothes  and  why  his  children  do  not  have 
all  the  things  that  we  have.  It  is  often  because  he  cannot 
make  those  two  ends  meet  which  must  meet  before  a  man 
can  be  happy  or  of  much  use  in  the  world.  Before  you 
finish  this  book  we  will  go  about  this  country  together  far 
enough  and  carefully  enough  to  see  that  what  this  chapter 
has  told  vou  is  true. 

This  nation  must  make  both  ends  meet  bv  living  within 
its  means.  That  calls  for  wasting  less  and  producing  more 
—  for  growing  bigger  crops,  for  so  handling  the  forests  as 
to  improve  them,  for  common  sense  and  knowledge  and 
self-restraint  in  our  use,  not  only  of  what  grows,  but  of  the 
things  which  do  not  grow,  like  minerals  ami  water. 

To-day  we  are  not  living  within  our  means.  Lentil  we  do 
we  are  harming  ourselves,  and  we  are  robbing  those  who 
will  come  after  us. 


CHAPTER    III 

HOW  THE   FOREST  IS   USED,   ABROAD  AND  AT   HOME 

WE  cannot  take  a  train  through  the  forests;  it  would 
not  carry  us  as   far  as  we  want  to  go.     So  we 
will  have  to  walk;    and  walking  is  much  better 
anyhow. 

/;/  Europe. 

Some  of  the  finest  forests  in  the  world  are  in  Europe. 
Let  us  go  and  see  what  one  of  these  is  like. 

Here  we  are,  on  a  beautiful  macadam  road,  like  the  roads 
through  the  parks  at  home,  which  winds  through  a  great 
forest  of  spruce,  fir,  and  beech.  It  is  a  beautiful  forest, 
dense  and  tall,  and  there  are  no  dead  or  badly  shaped  trees 
in  it.  The  ground  is  piled  deep  in  leaves,  but  we  do  not  see 
any  rotten  logs  or  broken  limbs.  It  is  as  clean  of  dead  wood 
as  the  road  we  stand  on. 

But  here  is  a  trail  which  leads  from  the  road  to  the  right, 
and  winds  in  and. out  among  the  trees.  Let  us  follow  it  and 
see  where  it  goes.  It  takes  us  first  through  a  big  block  of 
old  forest.  We  know  it  is  old  by  the  size  and  shape  of  the 
trees.  Besides,  we  hear  the  sound  of  the  axe,  and  see,  right 
over  there  is  a  gang  of  men  chopping.  This  tells  us  surely 
that  the  forest  is  ripe  to  cut.  But  what  queer-looking  wood- 
choppers !  They  are  not  at  all  like  our  own  lumberjacks 
back  home.  They  wear  red  woolen  caps  with  tassels  hang- 
ing from  the  peaks,  and  velveteen  vests  with  big  silver  but- 
tons, and  heavy  top  boots  coming  well  to  the  knee,  which 
fall  in  many  wrinkles  over  the  ankle.     They  are  talking  a 

35 


36 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


guttural  dialect,  which  is  not  a  bit  like  anything  we 
are  taught  in  school.  Still  we  can  understand  enough  to 
learn  something  about  the  work  these  woodchoppers  are 
doing. 


-'/?;.■ 


A  big  block  of  old  forest 


They  point  out  a  big  spruce  over  yonder,  which  has  just 
been  cut  down.  Bv  looking  closely  we  see  on  the  stump 
near  the  ground  a  broad  blaze  stamped  with  a  die.  Ibis 
is  where  the  forester  in  charge  of  this  forest  marked  the 


THE    FOREST    ABROAD    AND    AT    HOME     37 

spruce,  so  that  when  the  woodchoppers  came  to  it  they 
would  know  it  was  ripe,  and  to  be  cut.  See  how  close  to 
the  ground  he  marked  it,  so  that  there  would  be  no  doubt 
after  it  was  cut  down  and  the  logs  taken  away,  that  he 
really  wanted  it  cut.  And  see  that  big  fir  over  there,  cut  oft 
almost  level  with  the  ground.  Not  a  bit  of  the  tree  has  been 
wasted;    even  the  branches  as  big  as  your  thumb  have  been 


tsa 


The  valleys  make  a  carpet  of  many  colors 

tied  into  bundles  and  put  into  piles  ready  to  carry  away. 
See  how  carefully  the  tree  was  felled;  it  stood  thick  among 
other  trees,  but  was  thrown  so  skilfully  that  it  did  not  break 
or  scrape  any  of  them. 

But  why  has  the  bark  been  peeled  from  all  the  logs?  It 
cannot  be  worth  much,  and  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  scrape 
it  off  with  those  long-handled,  curved  chisels  which  the  wood- 
choppers  use.  They  tell  us  that  this  is  done  by  order  of 
the  forester.  It  costs  something,  but  it  is  necessary,  they 
say,  to  prevent  beetles  from  making  nests  under  the  bark 


38 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


in  the  logs,  and  then  spreading  to  the  forest  and  even  killing 
the  trees. 

We  should  like  to  stay  longer  with  these  woodcutters, 
but  we  must  go  on.  They  wave  us  a  friendly  good-bye 
as  we  follow  the  trail  still  further.  Through  the  trees 
we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  country  around  us,  with  its  rich 
valleys  and  rolling  hills  and  tall  mountains  in  the  distance. 


Some  of  the  roofs  are  thatched  with  straw 


It  looks  different  from  anything  we  have  ever  seen. 
The  fields  are  not  big  and  fenced  like  those  at  home;  and 
the  farms  are  in  such  little  patches  of  different  crops  that 
the  v^alleys  make  a  carpet  of  many  colors,  from  the  gold  of 
the  ripening  wheat  to  the  rich  green  of  the  alfalfa,  the  blue 
green  of  the  cabbages,  and  the  many  shades  of  the  plots 
planted  to  other  garden  crops. 

In  every  valley  we  see  a  village  and  outlines  of  other  vil- 
lages in  the  distance.  They  look  as  if  they  had  been  built 
a  long  time,   for  the  houses  are  not  made  of  wood,  but  of 


THE    FOREST    ABROAD    AND    AT    HOME     39 

brick  or  stone,  and  many  of  them  are  covered  with  white- 
washed stucco.  The  roofs  are  red  tile,  or  thatched  with 
straw.  In  every  village  we  see  a  church  spire  stretching 
like  a  landmark  far  up  above  the  cottage  roofs. 

The  forests  are  always  on  the  steep  upper  slopes  and 
crests  of  the  mountains,  and  the  farms  on  the  lower  slopes 
and  in  the  valleys.     Men  seem  to  have  found  out  here  a  long 


J 


Now  the  trail  leads  us  bv  a  forest  nursery 


time  ago  that  it  does  not  pay  to  strip  the  forest  from  the 
mountain  sides. 

Now  we  enter  a  different  kind  of  forest.  Nearly  all  the 
big  trees  have  been  cut,  and  the  trail  leads  us  through  a 
thicket  of  little  trees  which  have  grown  up  where  the  old 
trees  used  to  stand.  They  are  nearly  as  thick  as  bristles  in 
a  brush.  The  forester  has  planted  little  trees  to  fill  up  the 
spots  where  the  young  trees  did  not  come  in  of  themselves; 
but  on  the  whole  this  forest  is  reproducing  itself.  The  old 
trees  have  been  cut  so  carefully  and  gradually  that  the  young 


40  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

growth  spread  further  and  further  as  more  and  more  light 
was  let  in  by  the  cuttings,  until  now  there  is  another  forest 
where  the  old  one  stood.  It  is  clear  from  what  we  see  here 
that  a  man  can  cut  his  forest  and  start  a  new  one  at  the  same 
time. 

Now  the  trail  leads  us  by  a  forest  nursery  in  which  peas- 
ant women  are  at  work,  where  we  see  several  acres  of  little 
trees  only  a  few  inches  high.  The  very  little  ones  are  in  beds 
and  the  older  ones  in  rows  ready  to  be  taken  out  and  planted 
where  they  are  needed. 

But  who  is  this,  on  the  side  of  the  trail,  dressed  in  a  green 
uniform,  with  big  buttons  made  of  deer  horn,  a  rifle  in  a 
sling  strap  over  his  shoulder,  and  a  dachshund  at  his  heels? 
He  tells  us  he  is  a  forest  ranger,  and  he  is  directing  the 
work  of  many  boys  and  girls  who  are  setting  out  little  trees 
so  fast  that  you  can  almost  see  the  forest  grow  as  they  work. 
The  ranger  seems  to  know  his  business,  and  the  boys  and 
girls  behave  as  if  setting  out  trees  was  great  fun. 

Other  Kinds   of  Forests. 

Since  we  have  so  much  to  see,  let  us  take  a  short  trip  in 
an  aeroplane  or  a  balloon,  which  will  be  a  new  experience 
for  most  of  us.  Below  us  the  land  unfolds  like  a  map;  right 
under  us  now  is  the  silver  streak  made  by  a  great  river. 
We  are  looking  down  on  a  great  river  valley,  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  in  the  world,  and  among  the  most  inter- 
esting. It  has  been  fought  over,  back  and  forth;  and  men 
and  women  have  sung  songs  and  written  about  it  in  poetry 
and  in  prose  for  many  hundreds  of  years,  —  of  the  ruined 
castles  on  its  banks,  and  of  the  quaint  old  towns  past  which  it 
runs.  There  are  wheat  fields  with  vivid  poppies  growing 
among  the  golden  stalks,  and  vineyards  on  the  hillsides  and 
even  on  the  rocky  ledges;  there  are  beautitul  roads  running 


THE    FOREST   ABROAD    AND    AT    HOiME     41 

along  the  banks  —  roads  smooth  as  a   floor,   and  between 
them    the   blue    river.      Then   there    are    forests  —  not   the 


The  ruined  castles  on  its  banks 


kind  we  saw  In  the  other  forest,  but  patches  of  what  look 
like  second  growth.  These  are  "  sprout  forests  "  of  oak, 
which  are  grown  by  cutting  down  the  trees  when  they  are 


42  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

young,  so  that  each  little  stump  sends  up  several  shoots. 
Some  of  the  shoots  are  cut  off  so  as  not  to  take  too  much 
strength  from  the  stump,  and  in  fifteen  years  or  so  there  is 
a  forest  of  shoots  which  is  big  enough  to  cut  for  vineyard 
poles  and  for  hop  poles,  which  are  greatly  needed  In  the 
river  valley. 

When  we  land  from  our  aircraft  we  find  ourselves  in 
another  kind  of  forest.  We  have  dropped  down  into  still 
another  country,  which  is  not  far  from  the  river  valley, 
but  not  a  bit  like  it.  This  forest  is  all  spruce,  very  much 
like  our  spruce  trees  at  home.  In  the  first  forest  we  saw 
spruce  reproducing  itself  under  careful  cuttings  from  self- 
sown  seed,  but  here  they  cut  the  forest  clean  when  the  trees 
are  about  six  inches  thick,  which  is  before  they  bear  seed; 
and  so  they  have  to  plant  trees  to  grow  another  forest. 
The  reason  this  is  done  is  because  it  pays  best,  and  it  is  just 
as  good  forestry  as  what  we  saw  in  the  first  forest.  Lots 
of  paper  is  made  here,  and  they  grow  spruce  to  make  it  of. 
Spruce  grows  fast  until  it  is  about  six  inches  through,  when 
it  is  big  enough  for  the  paper  mills.  After  that  it  grows 
much  more  slowly.  So  they  cut  the  trees  when  they  are 
small,  and  it  pays  so  much  better  than  waiting  until  they 
are  bigger,  that  the  foresters  can  afford  to  go  to  the  expense 
of  planting  up  the  land  after  the  forest  is  cut  off. 

Here  is  a  clean  cutting  of  last  year,  but  already  the 
stumps  have  been  grubbed  out,  and  little  trees  have  been 
planted  in  row  after  row  about  three  feet  apart,  all  growing 
sturdy  and  strong. 

If  we  only  had  more  time,  we  would  go  to  many  other 
interesting  places  in  these  wonderful  countries  of  Europe, 
where  they  take  care  of  everything  because  they  have  found 
that  it  pays.  But  we  cannot  spend  any  more  time  abroad, 
for  we  have  too  much  to  see  In  our  own  country.  If  we  were 
all  going  to  be  foresters  it  would  pay  us  to  go  all  over 


THE    FOREST    ABROAD    AND   AT    HOME     43 

Europe,  to  France  and  Switzerland  and  Russia,  and  study 
all  their  forest  methods  on  the  ground.  But  since  we  are 
not  all  going  to  be  foresters,  w^e  have  learned  enough  al- 
ready to  get  the  great  lesson  which  the  care  of  the  forests 
in  Europe  teaches  every  one  who  keeps  his  eyes  open  —  the 
lesson  of  thrift. 

We  have  seen  something  of  how  they  care  for  the  forests 
abroad,  and  we  naturally  want  to  see,  now  that  we  are  back 
at  home,  how  they  are  handled  in  our  own  country. 


In  the  Southern  Pine  Belt. 

We  will  go  South  first,  into  the  wide  pine  belt,  which  once 
covered  the  whole  southeastern  part  of  the  United  States 
between  the  Appalachian  Mountains  and  the  sea. 

The  forests  are  nearly  the  same  throughout  this  whole 
region,  except  that  hardwoods  and  shortleaf  pine  are  more 
common  in  the  northern  part,  while  the  longleaf  pine  is  the 
chief  timber  tree  in  the  Gulf  States.  These  are  the  forests 
through  which  we  first  passed,  on  our  journey  with  the 
settlers  westward  from  the  southern  Atlantic  coast. 

The  forest  is  always  the  same,  except  in  the  swamps  and 
along  the  streams,  where  the  pine  gives  way  to  the  strange- 
looking  cypress,  with  its  trunk  swelling  out  at  the  butt  like 
a  bottle,  and  its  great  roots  called  "  knees  "  sticking  up  on 
all  sides  from  the  water  until  it  looks  as  if  all  the  roots  were 
above  ground  instead  of  below.  With  the  cvpress  are  glossy- 
leaved  magnolias,  and  gums,  and  many  shrubs  which  we 
never  see  further  north.  They  are  weird  places,  are  these 
swamps,  with  their  dark  water  and  ghostly  cypress  and 
heavy  shade.  No  doubt  they  looked  just  the  same  when  the 
settlers  saw  them,  and  for  many  thousand  years  before. 

Between  the  swamps   are  great  stretches  of  sandy  land 


44 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


covered  with  open  pine  forest.  There  is  little  young  growth 
or  underbrush,  and  the  ground  is  covered  with  pine  needles, 
or  with  wild  grasses  when  the  forest  is  very  sparse. 

As  we  pass  through  the  woods,  we  see  something  which 
we  are  not  likely  to  understand,  if  we  have  never  seen  it  be- 
fore.    Every  tree  on  a  wide  strip  has  had  a  gash  chopped 


An  old  turpentine  "orchard" 


across  its  trunk  near  the  ground,  and  for  a  couple  of  feet 
above  the  gash  the  bark  and  a  good  deal  of  the  wood  have 
been  hacked  away.  Here  the  turpentine  "  orcharders  "  have 
been  at  work.  The  crude  gum,  which  is  simply  the  sap  of 
the  longleaf  pine,  bleeds  freely  from  the  wound  or  "  blaze  " 
and  trickles  slowly  down  into  the  gash  below,  which  has  been 
so  made  as  to  form  a  little  pocket  for  catching  it.  Then  men 
come  and  dip  out  the  resin  with  ladles,  and  haul  it  away  to 


THE    FOREST    ABROAD    AND    AT    HOxME     45 

little  turpentine  "  stills  "  in  the  forest,  where  it  is  cooked, 
to  make  turpentine  and  rosin. 

We  see  some  of  the  older  turpentine  "  orchards,"  in  which 
the  trees  have  been  blazed  on  four  sides  and  then  abandoned. 
Fire  has  run  through  them,  and  evidently  burned  fiercely 
on  the  pitchy,  blazed  wounds  of  the  trees,  for  many  of  them 


The  log  loader  at  work 


have  either  been  burned  off  at  the  stump,  or  burned  so  nearly 
through  that  the  next  wind  blew  them  over.  These  tur- 
pentine orchards  look  a  good  deal  like  a  corn  field,  after  a 
herd  of  cattle  have  broken  through  the  fence  and  eaten  their 
fill,  and  wasted  in  stalks  trampled  and  crushed  a  good  deal 
more  than  they  have  eaten. 

We  board  a  log  train,  which  takes  us  from  the  turpentine 


46  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IX 

orchards  into  the  cuttings.  How  different  they  look  from 
those  we  saw  in  Europe!  Instead  of  the  little  gang  of 
woodchoppers,  we  see  many  groups  of  men  at  work  —  most 
of  them  negroes  —  felling  trees,  cutting  them  up  into  logs, 
laying  a  spur  from  the  railroad  track  on  which  our  train 
stands.  They  are  also  operating  a  queer-looking  engine 
mounted  on  a  car.  The  engine  puffs  rapidly  and  moves  a 
long  steel  arm  like  a  crane,  which  is  lifting  logs  and  loading 
them  on  other  cars  as  easily  as  you  would  pick  up  a  stick 
of  firewood. 

This  machine  is  well  worth  watching  for  a  while.  It  looks 
a  good  deal  like  the  steam  shovels  we  have  seen  at  work 
where  much  dirt  is  being  moved,  as  on  railroads  and  the  sites 
of  great  buildings.  Running  out  from  this  log  loader,  for 
that  is  what  it  is,  is  a  long,  flexible  wire  rope.  We  see  a  boy 
mounted  on  a  mule,  hauling  this  rope  or  cable  out  into  the 
woods.  On  the  end  of  the  cable  are  two  big  hooks,  which 
the  lumbermen  call  a  "  pair  of  tongs."  The  mule  stops  at 
the  end  of  a  big  log  in  which  a  man  fastens  the  tongs.  At 
a  signal  the  little  engine  begins  puffing  away  and  pulling  in 
the  long  cable  with  the  log  fastened  to  it,  by  winding  the 
cable  around  a  big  steel  cylinder  which  looks  like  and  is  called 
a  "  drum."  As  soon  as  the  log  is  at  the  side  of  the  loader 
the  tongs  are  loosened  and  the  big  crane  swings  around  until 
it  is  over  the  log,  into  which  another  pair  of  hooks  are 
fastened;  then  at  another  signal  the  log  is  lifted  high  in  the 
air  and  gently  let  down  on  a  flat  car.  In  order  not  to  have 
trouble  changing  cars  all  the  time,  the  loader  is  sometimes 
buih  so  high  above  the  car  on  which  it  rests  that  flat  cars  can 
pass  beneath  it  as  they  are  loaded. 

When  we  see  all  this  we  are  quite  proud  of  American 
cleverness.  But  when  we  get  out  in  the  woods  from  the  rail- 
road track,  we  do  not  feel  so  proud. 

In  the  woods  we  do  not  see  so  much  waste  of  the  timber 


THE    FOREST   ABROAD   AND   AT   HOME      47 

Itself,  because,  after  all,  it  is  easy  to  get  this  timber  out,  and 
the  market  is  so  good  that  it  pays  to  take  the  most  of  it. 
But  here  and  there  we  do  see  some  high  stumps,  and  some 
logs  which  might  have  been  cut  out  of  the  tops,  but  which 
have  been  left  to  lie  on  the  ground  and  rot.  The  great  waste 
is  the  waste  of  the  forest.  No  trees  have  been  left  standing 
to  sow  seed  for  a  new  forest,  and  the  only  trees  which  have 
not  been  cut  are  those  which  the  lumbermen  cannot  sell  very 
profitably.  The  result  is  that  much  of  the  land  has  been  cut 
clear.  Fire  has  evidently  run  over  it  almost  every  year.  The 
ground  Is  so  bare  that  the  fires  have  not  been  very  hot,  but 
they  have  scorched  the  few  remaining  trees  at  the  butts  and 
killed  some  of  them.  They  have  completely  destroyed  all 
the  little  seedlings,  and  the  trees  from  five  to  twenty  feet 
high  have  been  stunted  by  repeated  scorching.  Another  re- 
sult has  been  burning  up  the  needles  and  mould  underneath, 
so  that  the  ground  is  now  covered  with  tough,  wiry  broom 
sedge.  In  which  tree  seeds  do  not  sprout  and  grow  well. 

It  is  clear  from  what  we  see  than  on  much  of  this  land 
trees  will  have  to  be  planted  before  the  forests  will  return; 
and  even  where  the  little  trees  are  creeping  over  the  clearings 
they  are  coming  back  so  slowly  that  it  will  not  be  less  than 
one  hundred  years,  and  probably  longer,  before  they  will  be 
big  enough  to  cut.  It  looks  like  a  great  pity  because  the 
land  is  sandy  and  very  little  of  it  will  make  good  farming 
land. 

Among  the  Douglas  Fir. 

It  is  a  long  jump  from  the  South  to  the  Northwest,  but 
we  must  not  fail  to  see  one  of  the  great  western  forests. 
So  now  we  will  go  to  far-off  Oregon,  and  into  the  beautiful 
Cascade  Mountains.  This  Is  a  totally  different  kind  of  coun- 
try from  anything  we  saw  in  Europe  or  in  the  South.  It 
has  very  steep  slopes  and  narrow  valleys,  and  the  trees  are 


In  the  beautiful  Cascade  Mountains 


THE    FOREST    ABROAD    AND    AT    HOME     49 

enormous.  There  are  great  hemlock  and  Douglas  fir  and 
spruce  —  some  of  the  fir  are  eight  and  ten  feet  through. 
We  have  to  look  nearly  straight  up  in  the  air  to  see  their 
tops,  over  two  hundred  feet  above  us,  as  high  as  a  twenty- 
story  building.  The  ground  is  covered  at  least  a  foot  deep 
with  the  mould  from  many  centuries  of  leaf  fall,  and  moss- 
covered  logs  lie  thickly  upon  it. 

This  is  a  very  hard  country  to  travel  in  —  the  roughest 
by  far  we  have  yet  seen.  The  underbrush  is  so  thick  that 
we  can  hardly  break  our  way  through  it,  and  we  strike 
patches  of  what  is  well  called  "Devil's  Club"  —  a  tall 
bush  with  big  leaves  from  whose  under  side  grow  long, 
sharp  spikes,  which  tear  our  clothes  and  even  our  flesh  if 
we  are  not  careful.  This  must  be  a  very  rainy  country  to 
make  such  great  forests  and  such  rich  growth  everywhere. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Washington  is  the  rainiest  country 
in  the  United  States,  and  we  shall  be  lucky  if  we  get  out  of 
the  woods  without  a  wetting. 

We  go  into  the  woods  on  a  log  train  just  as  we  did  in 
the  South,  but  this  time  the  track  winds  In  and  out,  up  steep 
grades,  through  narrow,  shut-In  valleys,  and  finally  stops 
simply  because  no  self-respecting  train  could  go  any  further. 
At  the  end  of  the  track  a  steep,  deep-cut  valley  runs  off 
to  the  right,  at  the  mouth  of  which  is  an  engine  which  looks 
like  the  donkey  engines  we  have  seen  loading  vessels  with 
cargo. 

Stretching  up  the  valley  is  a  sort  of  trough  called  a 
"  chute,"  made  of  logs,  from  which  the  bark  has  been  peeled 
and  which  have  evidently  been  greased,  because  they  are 
slick  and  shining.  As  we  watch  the  little  donkey  engine, 
It  gives  a  whistle  and  we  see  a  cable  lying  in  the  bottom  of 
the  log  trough,  or  "  chute,"  tighten  up  until  it  is  as  taut 
as  a  bow  string.  It  begins  to  wind  in  on  a  drum,  which  is 
part  of  the  donkey  engine,  and  soon  we  see  several  great 


50 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


logs  coming  down  the  trough  hitched  together  by  hooks, 
with   the   cable   chained  to   the    front   one.      The   logs   are 


Pulling  logs  down  the  chute 

pulled  in  to  the  sitlc  ot  the  track,  which  is  on  a  lc\cl  with 
the  Hat  cars,  so  that  they  can  he  h)atled  easily.  No  log 
loader  such  as  we  saw  in  the  South  is  made  strong  enough  to 


THE    FOREST   ABROAD   AND   AT   HOME     51 

lift  these  great  sticks  of  timber,  some  of  which  are  twenty 
feet  long  and  eight  feet  through  at  the  butt,  and  weigh  as 
much  as  twenty  horses. 

But  if  we  want  to  see  the  trees  come  down,  we  must  walk 
up  the  "  chute  "  for  about  a  mile.  On  the  way  we  pass  sev^- 
eral  other  donkey  engines,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  apart. 
It  Is  clear  that  one  of  them  can't  do  the  work  because  of  the 
strain  on  so  long  a  cable,  and  that  each  one  has  to  pull  the 
logs  a  certain  distance,  when  they  are  attached  to  the  cable 
leacilng  to  another  "  donkey."  We  constantly  meet  logs  on 
their  way  down  to  the  track.  When  the  slope  Is  steep,  they 
slip  along  so  fast  as  nearly  to  overrun  the  cable,  anci  others 
we  see  being  pulled  slowly  up  the  other  side.  We  have  to 
be  careful  to  keep  clear  of  the  cable,  for  where  It  crosses  a 
ravine,  It  often  switches  up  Into  the  air  fifty  feet  or  more 
as  It  is  tightened.  If  we  were  caught  by  It,  we  would  not 
see  any  more  forests. 

Here  Is  the  last  donkey  engine  and  over  there  we  can 
see  the  loggers  at  work.  There  is  so  much  that  is  strange  to 
us  that  we  hardlv  know  where  to  begin.  There  are  two  men 
felling  a  Douglas  fir,  which  must  be  eight  feet  through  and 
over  two  hundred  feet  high.  Instead  of  working  on  the 
ground,  they  are  standing  on  spring  boards,  stuck  into  notches 
In  the  side  of  the  trunk  several  feet  above  the  ground.  They 
are  doing  this  to  avoid  cutting  through  the  thick  stump  lower 
down,  which  means  much  waste  of  timber  In  the  stump. 
On  the  further  side  of  the  tree  Is  a  great  notch  so  long  and 
deep  that  two  men  could  He  In  It,  and  the  loggers  on  the 
spring  boards  are  savv'Ing  through  the  tree  toward  the  notch 
with  a  huge  two-hanciled  cross-cut  saw\  As  luck  will  have 
It,  their  work  is  nearly  over,  and  a  few  minutes  will  see  the 
tree  come  down. 

It  does  n't  look  as  If  this  huge  column  of  timber,  half  as 
hl";h  as  the  Washington  Monument,  would  ever  fall.     But 


'I'here  are  two  men  felling  a  Douglas  fir 


THE   FOREST  ABROAD  AND   AT   HOiME     53 

even  now  the  sawyers  yell  "  Timber,"  and  climb  hastily 
down  from  their  spring  boards.  Suddenly  from  the  big  tree 
there  is  a  crack  sharp  as  a  pistol  shot,  made  by  the  parting 
of  the  fibers  deep  in  its  heart.  Crack!  Crack!  Crack! 
the  reports  continue;  and  now  we  see  the  top  of  the  tree 
beginning  to  move.  At  first  it  moves  very  slowly,  but  soon 
goes  faster  and  faster,  and  now  the  cracks  are  like  the  re- 
ports of  a  small  cannon.  As  we  run  aside  out  of  danger 
the  great  tree  crashes  through  the  tops  of  other  trees,  filling 
the  air  with  flying  branches  and  even  limbs  as  thick  as  your 
body,  as  it  smashes  to  the  ground.  The  earth  trembles,  for 
the  big  trees,  like  the  big  animals,  die  hard  —  like  the  whale 
in  its  death  flurry,  or  the  fall  of  an  African  elephant  with  an 
ounce  bullet  in  its  brain. 

Around  us  are  other  forest  giants,  over  which  men  are 
swarming  like  ants;  some  are  sawing  the  huge  trunks  into 
logs,  which  is  sometimes  the  work  of  a  day  to  each  cut; 
others  are  peeling  off  the  bark,  not  as  a  safeguard  against 
insects,  as  we  saw  done  in  Europe,  but  simply  to  be  rid  of 
this  extra  weight  when  the  logs  are  moved.  Winding  in 
and  out  among  the  logs  we  see  a  wise-looking  gray  horse, 
who  hauls  behind  him  a  wire  cable  to  the  end  of  which  a 
pair  of  great  hooks  are  fastened.  Now  we  see  a  man  driving 
the  hooks  Into  the  end  of  a  log.  The  man  calls  out  a  signal, 
the  donkey  engine  whistles,  the  cable  tightens,  and  the  great 
log  begins  its  long  journey  first  to  the  top  of  the  chute  and 
theii  to  the  railroad  track.  Again  we  miust  be  careful  be- 
cause great  danger  lurks  about  the  cable ;  it  necessarily  makes 
all  sorts  of  strange  angles,  as  the  horse  hauls  it  between  and 
around  the  logs ;  and  as  it  tightens  it  sometimes  sweeps  over 
a  space  of  fifty  feet  or  more.  To  be  struck  by  it  would  be 
a  good  deal  like  being  hit  by  one  of  the  big  branches  broken 
ofl^  when  the  great  tree  fell.  There  is  still  another  danger 
we  must  be  on  guard  against,  for  the  hooks  sometimes  pull 


54  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

out  of  a  log,  and  then  the  cable  whips  madly  all  about,  before 
the  engine  can  be  stopped. 

We  cannot  help  feeling  great  admiration  for  the  men 
who  are  doing  such  difficult  and  dangerous  work.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  at  all  like  ordinary  logging;  it  is 
much  more  like  engineering  to  handle  such  huge  weights 
under  such  conditions. 

But  we  cannot  admire  the  waste  we  see  all  about  us. 
There  is  enough  wood  left  in  stumps  and  in  logs  and  timber 
in  the  tops  of  trees  to  make,  acre  for  acre,  several  times 
what  the  careful  Europeans  harvest  by  clean  cutting  their 
beautiful  spruce  forests.  But  that  is  not  the  worst  of  it, 
for  as  we  climb  in  and  out  of  the  steep  little  canyons  we 
come  to  the  cuttings  of  several  years  ago.  Here  the  fire 
followed  the  lumbermen  as  it  so  often  does,  and  left  a  sad 
picture.  The  tops  were  too  big  to  burn  up  clean,  but  the 
ground  was  scorched  bare  right  down  to  the  rocks,  and  over 
it,  In  a  miserable  jumble,  lie  the  huge  charred  skeletons  of 
the  tops  of  the  great  trees.  If  we  went  further  through  the 
old  cuttings,  we  would  find  in  the  older  ones  that  the  trees 
are  coming  back  again,  for  the  Douglas  fir  fortunately  does 
not  need  vegetable  mould  to  grow  in.  But  they  are  coming 
back  very  slowly,  and  there  are  great  blanks  here  and  there, 
too  far  from  standing  trees  for  self-sown  seed  to  reach  them. 
The  definite  impression  we  take  awa^  is  that  part  of  this 
waste  may  be  necessary,  but  that  most  of  It  could  be  avoided 
profitably  if  the  lumbermen  knew  how  quickly  the  land  thcv 
log  could  be  made  to  grow  trees  again  through  the  use  of 
less  destructi\c  methods. 


Logging  ni  I  he  Norlli  JFoods. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  fair  to  iudgc  all  lumbenncn  h\  what  we 
ha\'e  seen   In   the  South   atui  In  Oregon.      So  let  's  look  at 


THE    FOREST   ABROAD   AND   AT   HOME     55 

another  forest,  far  away  from  either.     To  northern  Manie 
Is  another  long  jump,  but  we  are  getting  used  to  that. 

It  is  winter  time  and  the  ground  is  under  deep  snow. 
The  forests  are  like  those  we  saw  in  Oregon,  but  the  trees 
are  much  smaller.  Here  the  spruce  is  only  about  two  feet 
through,  and  the  fir  is  smaller  still,  and  seems  to  grow  mainly 
in  the  swamps.  Scattered  among  the  spruce,  on  the  higher 
ground,  are  northern  hardwoods,  yellow  birch,  maple,  and 
beech;    while  lower  down  we  find  soft  maple  and  some  ash, 


We  begin  to  meet  sleds  piled  high  with  logs 


and  in  the  swamps  the  tamarack.  But  small  as  the  trees  are, 
the  forest  is  beautiful,  constantly  changing  in  type  as  we 
trudge  from  swamp  to  flat  and  slope  and  hilltop.  Now  and 
then,  particularly  on  the  edge  of  swamps  and  in  the  little 
natural  meadows,  we  see  the  sharp-cut  run-ways  made  by 
the  hoofs  of  deer.  , 

Already  we  hear  the  musical  swish  of  the  cross-cut  saws, 
which  means  that  here,  too,  men  are  harvesting  the  forest 
crop,  as  they  are  doing  everywhere  where  forests  and  men 
are  found  together.  As  we  get  nearer  we  see  frequent  signs 
of  what  is  going  on. 

Here  is  a  road  cut  through  the  trees,  and  it  looks  as  if  the 


56 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


snow  had  been  leveled  and  water  had  been  poured  on  top 
and  allowed  to  freeze,  for  its  surface  is  smooth  as  glass. 
Along  the  side  of  this  road  are  stacks  of  logs,  and  we  begin 
to  meet  loaded  sleds  pulled  by  two  to  four  massive  horses, 
like  the  horses  we  see  hitched  to  great  trucks  in  the  cities. 
It  must  be  ticklish  work  to  drive  a  team  with  such  a  load 


The  camp  is  the  loggers'  home 


over  such  a  road.  Where  the  grade  is  steep  we  notice  that 
hay  has  been  scattered  over  it,  so  as  to  keep  the  sleds  from 
running  against  the  horses  and  killing  them,  and  perhaps 
the  teamster  too.  We  meet  more  and  more  loaded  sleds, 
all  going  the  same  way,  and  pass  many  stacks  of  logs,  at 
which  the  loading  is  going  on. 

Soon  we  reach  the  cuttings,  where  they  are  felling 
spruce,  hemlock,  and  balsam,  down  to  such  small  sizes  that 
we  wonder  what  they  are  going  to  do  with  them.     The  fore- 


THE    FOREST   ABROAD   AND   AT   HOME     57 

man  says  they  will  be  used  for  making  paper;  so  this  is  the 
same  kind  of  work  we  saw  going  on  in  Europe.  But  it  is 
not  being  done  in  the  same  careful  way.  Our  Saxon  forester 
would  never  forgive  those  high  stumps,  and  whoever  left 
those  logs  in  the  fallen  tops  of  the  trees  would  be  sure  to  get 


Dinner  in  a  North  Woods  logging  camp 

into  trouble.  He  would  be  still  more  provoked  by  the  reck- 
less way  in  which  the  trees  are  cut  down.  The  only  object 
seems  to  be  to  get  them  down  as  quicklv  as  possible.  As 
we  pass  along  we  see  many  cases  where  trees  which  were 
so  felled  as  to  smash  down  clumps  of  young  growth  could 
have  been  dropped  quite  as  easily  into  a  road  or  where  the 
ground  was  bare. 


58 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    L\ 


The  greatest  waste  of  all  is  not  of  the  timber,  but  of 
the  forest  itself.  It  is  the  same  kind  of  waste  we  have  seen, 
or  perhaps  we  have  shared  in,  when  a  group  of  boys  find  a 
young  cherry  orchard  with  the  fruit  dead  ripe,  on  a  bright 


W'c  might  go  into  the  Lake  States 


day  in  Ti-inc,  wnd  with  nobody  around,  and  then  shinny  up  the 
trees  and  break  and  tear  off  the  limbs,  antl  make  destructi\"e 
little  animals  of  themselves  generally,  so  that  they  can 
get  all  rhey  want  the  more  quickly.  It  is  one  way  to  get 
the  cherries,  but  it  is  n't  the  best  way  for  the  orchard.  The 
lumberman's  way  is  even  worse. 


Getting  cypress  logs  out  under  difficulties 


6o  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

Not  the  only  damage  to  young  growth  is  through  careless 
felling.  We  see  big,  active  horses,  which  are  wise  looking 
like  the  "  lead  "  horse  we  saw  in  Oregon,  with  swingletrees 
behind  them,  to  which  big  hooks  are  fastened  for  pulling 
out  the  logs.  These  horses  are  yanking  the  little  logs  out  to 
the  log  piles.  It  is  rough  collar  work,  and  of  course  they 
trample  down  much  young  growth  as  they  go.  No  one 
seems  to  care;  it  is  clear  that  if  the  young  trees  survive, 
it  is  only  by  accident.  These  lumbermen  seem  to  think  that 
the  only  trees  worth  anything  are  those  they  can  cut  now, 
and  saw  into  logs,  which  is  about  as  reasonable  as  to  say  a 
calf  is  not  worth  anything  until  it  is  a  cow. 

It  is  the  same  story  when  we  get  to  the  old  cuttings —  the 
same  story  of  fire,  of  soil  burnt  bare,  of  a  jumble  of  charred 
tops;  of  land  suitable  only  for  growing  wood,  made  useless 
for  perhaps  a  hundred  years.  It  is  such  a  sorry  picture 
that  we  would  scarcely  be  willing  to  take  the  land  for  a 
gift  if  we  had  to  pay  the  taxes  on  it. 

When  we  think  of  what  we  saw  in  Europe,  of  the  sys- 
tematic, careful,  skilled  harvesting  of  the  forest  crop  there, 
and  of  the  new  forest  growing  up  through  the  wise  use  of 
the  axe,  we  wonder  why  we  waste  so  much  at  home. 

The  Same  Nearly  Everywhere. 

We  might  go  into  the  Lake  States,  into  the  Southwest 
and  into  the  Southern  mountains,  but  we  cannot  spend  all 
our  time  seeing  lumbering.  Besides,  we  do  not  need  to  go 
further.  We  would  see  the  same  kind  of  work  and  waste 
nearly  everywhere. 

We  would  see  work  often  admirable  in  its  organization 
and  its  enterprise,  and  in  the  ways  Americans  have  worked 
out  to  get  logs  out  of  difficult  country  cheaply  and  fast;  but 
nearly  everywhere  we  would  see  waste,  much  of  which  is 


62 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


real  waste,  because  it  is  unnecessary  —  waste  which  a  few 

cents  more  spent  on  each  acre  logged  over  would  prevent. 

This  waste  seems  great  to  us,  even  in  the  few  places  we 

have  seen.     Think  of  what  it  amounts  to  in  one  year,  when 


—- «a.,  -'ii»wi*mi>iiiittii  m^y^-»itanm^  to.-;«fc.*,*t„. . 


f ■Mrr^T'^g  ^: :  ^ j^^a  ^  ^a. .  ■  t 


PP«  ...... 


ikA-       V,,         ■-.•.<*»'it.  .l»l'     i-  .'    TWT.JC  tL 


Japan  is  growing  trees  to  plant 


we  consider  all  the  forests  of  the  United  States  together. 
There  have  been  many  years  in  which  forest  fires  burnt  up 
even  more  timber  than  was  cut  and  used;  and  for  the  last 
fifty  years  the  average  loss  each  year  from  lorcst  fires, 
counting  only  the  timber  actually  destroyed,   is  abnut  fifty 


THE   FOREST   ABROAD   AND   AT   HOME    63 

million  dollars.  If  we  took  account  of  the  little  trees  killed, 
the  loss  would  be  far  greater,  for  these  little  trees,  which  if 
protected  would  grow  into  another  forest,  are  no  less  valu- 
able than  the  ripe  timber. 


India  buys  more  wood  than  she  sells 


IFe  must  Grozv  Timber  or  Go  Jl^itiioiit. 

We  have  wasted  so  much  timber  that  we  are  already 
put  to  it  to  find  enough  to  meet  our  needs.  We  are  using 
up  the  forests  nearly  four  times  as  fast  as  they  are  growing 
back  again,  and  the  ripe  timber  now  standing  will  not  last 
more  than  thirty  or  forty  years.  After  it  is  gone  we  shall 
have  nothing  but  second  growth  left.     The  more  carefully 


64  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

our  logging  is  done,  the  more  second  growth  we  will  have 
when  the  pinch  comes,  provided  we  protect  it  from  lire. 

But  if  we  go  on  wasting  our  forests  and  leaving  cut-over 
lands  like  those  we  have  seen  in  the  South  and  in  Oregon 
and  in  the  North  Woods,  then  the  end  of  our  mature  timber 
will  not  mean  timber  scarcity,  but  real  timber  famine,  which 
would  bring  with  it  suffering  only  second  to  food  famine. 

We  cannot  expect  to  get  enough  timber  from  other  coun- 
tries. Taking  the  whole  world  together,  it  is  using  quite 
as  much  timber  as  it  produces.  If  we  are  to  have  wood 
straight  along,  out  of  which  to  build  houses  and  railroads, 
and  for  firewood  and  all  the  other  daily  uses  for  which  wood 
is  needed,  then  we  must  grow  our  own  supply  or  we  must 
go  without. 

We  have  seen  what  most  lumbermen  are  doing,  and  it  is 
not  encouraging.  Now  let  us  go  elsewhere  to  see  if  we  can 
find  anybody  in  the  United  States  who  is  handling  the 
forests  in  the  right  way.  If  we  can,  and  if  what  they  are 
doing  really  pays,  then  the  situation  is  far  from  hopeless, 
because  what  one  man  does  profitably  others  are  sure  to 
do  sooner  or  later,  although  they  may  be  slow  to  take  it 
up  at  first. 


CHAPTER    IV 

IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  '^ 

HERE  we  are  In  the  Cascade  Mountains  again;  the 
same  country  in  which  we  saw  the  donkey  engines, 
and  the  big  trees  coming  down. 

We  go  into  the  woods  over  a  carefully  laid  out  trail,  with 
easy  grades,  wide  enough  for  pack  horses,  and  out  of  which 
all  fallen  trees  have  been  cut. 

After  the  trail  crosses  the  first  high  ridge  it  soon  leads 
down  to  a  cheeriul  little  valley,  at  the  widest  part  of  which 
we  see  the  beginnings  of  a  farm.  The  forest  has  already 
been  cut  down;  there  are  a  few  acres  under  the  plow,  and 
a  good  garden  patch;  and  a  strong  log  cabin,  which  begins 
to  look  like  a  home,  with  its  patch  of  bright  flowers  in  front 
of  the  doorway,  and  the  smoke  curling  out  of  the  chimney. 

We  are  in  one  of  the  great  National  Forests;  but  what 
is  a  farm  doing  here?  There  is  the  rancher  behind  his 
plow,  and  perhaps  he  won't  mind  checking  his  struggle 
against  the  stubs  and  roots  of  the  new  ground  long  enough 
to  tell  us  how  he  came  to  settle  here. 

"  Yes,  this  is  a  National  Forest,"  he  says.  "  There  are 
about  a  million  acres  in  it;  and  they  tell  me  that  the  Gov- 
ernment has  nearly  two  hundred  more  great  forests  scat- 
tered among  the  mountains  all  the  way  from  Mexico  to  the 
Canadian  border,  up  and  down  the  Rockies,  the  Sierras,  and 
the  Cascades.  I  believe  there  are  a  few  back  East,  but  not 
many. 

"  These  great  forests  are  under  the  care  of  the  Govern- 
ment, but  they  really  belong  to  the  American  people  —  to 

65 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  67 

you  and  to  me,  and  all  the  rest  of  us.  The  Government  is 
handling  them  so  that  we  will  all  get  benefit  from  them,  and 
not  only  we  ourselves,  but  our  children.  That  means  that 
all  the  land  is  put  to  its  best  use;  and  so  the  law  lets  a 
man  settle  in  the  forest,  if  the  land  he  chooses  is  good 
enough  to  make  the  farm  a  home. 

"How  is  the  Government  doing  all  this?"  we  ask. 
"  Well,  that  is  a  long  story,"  says  the  rancher.  "  I  think 
it  would  interest  you  to  ride  over  this  forest  and  see  it  for 
yourselves.  There  comes  one  of  the  rangers ;.  he  is  going 
up  the  trail,  and  you  might  ride  along  with  him.  He  can 
tell  you  all  about  it." 

While  the  rancher  is  speaking,  there  comes  riding  up  the 
trail  a  man  in  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  whom  at  first  we  take 
for  a  cowboy,  from  the  swing  of  his  shoulders  and  the  way 
he  sits  his  horse.  But  this  man  wears  a  neat,  serviceable  uni- 
form of  dull  green  cloth,  and  pinned  to  his  shirt  underneath 
his  open  coat  is  a  little  bronze  badge  which  puzzles  us  at 
first;  a  little  later  we  get  a  close  look  at  it,  and  we  see  on  it 
a  pine  tree  in  relief,  and  above  it  the  raised  letters  "  Forest 
Service."  The  ranger  says  he  will  be  glad  to  have  us  ride 
with  him  and  to  tell  us  all  he  can. 

We  take  to  this  ranger  from  the  start.  He  talks  clearly 
and  frankly  about  his  work,  and  he  looks  to  be  very  much  a 
man.  As  we  jog  along  he  points  out  many  things  as  we  pass 
them,  and  he  never  laughs  at  our  questions,  "  tenderfeet  "  as 
they  may  often  show  us  to  be. 

A  Busy  Job. 

"  Yes,"  he  tells  us,  "  I  work  for  Uncle  Sam  —  not  because 
he  pays  me  well,  for  a  man  with  a  family  cannot  save  much 
money  and  keep  the  two  horses  needed  for  his  work  at 
twelve  hundred  dollars  a  year  —  but  I  like  the  work  because 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  69 

I  believe  In  it,  and  because  we  are  succeeding,  and  I  like  the 
men  I  work  with.  They  know  their  business,  and  they  are 
working  for  other  people  and  not  for  themselves. 

"  My  job?  Well,  it  's  a  fairly  husky  job.  I  have  charge 
of  about  a  hundred  thousand  acres  which  is  called  a  dis- 
trict, and  over  me  is  the  supervisor,  who  has  charge  of  the 
whole  forest.  I  live  in  the  woods  most  of  the  year,  in  a 
little  cabin  which  the  Government  built;  I  hope  you  will 
eat  supper  and  sleep  there  to-night." 

"  But  what  kind  of  work  do  you  do  in  this  great  district?  " 
we  ask. 

"  It  is  part  of  my  duty  to  see  that  fires  don't  get  into  my 
district,"  says  the  ranger.  "  Every  day  during  the  fire  sea- 
son, which  lasts  from  about  May  until  late  in  the  fall,  I 
ride  the  trails  on  the  lookout  for  fires.  If  I  see  one  I  have 
to  drop  everything  else  and  hike  for  it,  which  may  take  a 
couple  of  days,  for  one  can  see  a  great  way  off  in  these 
mountains,  and  the  going  is  hard.  Then  I  have  to  look 
after  timber  sales,  for  the  Government  is  selling  timber  here, 
and  it  has  to  be  cut  carefully  so  as  not  to  injure  the  forest. 

"  I  have  to  watch  the  sheep  and  cattle  which  are  grazed 
in  the  forest,  and  see  to  it  that  they  are  kept  in  the  territory 
assigned  to  them,  and  that  the  range  is  not  overgrazed." 

We  are  thinking  that  the  ranger  has  his  hands  full  if  he 
does  all  these  things,  but  he  goes  on. 

"  There  are  many  other  things.  If  anybody  wants  to  use 
anything  in  my  district  for  any  purpose,  —  and  the  Gov- 
ernment encourages  the  use  of  this  forest  in  every  way 
which  will  not  destroy  it,  —  I  go  over  matters  with  them  on 
the  ground,  and  I  give  them  a  permit.  Some  people  want  to 
settle  in  the  forest,  like  the  rancher  back  there  in  the  valley, 
and  I  have  to  find  out  whether  the  land  will  really  make 
a  good  farm,  or  whether  it  is  so  poor  that  it  ought  to  stay 
under  forest.     People  want  land  for  camp  sites,  or  to  build 


70 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


stores  on,  or  for  mines,  and  for  many  other  uses.  Some 
want  to  buy  timber  to  saw  up  and  sell,  while  many  more 
want  a  little  timber  for  nothing  for  their  own  use  —  and  this 
the  Government  gives  them,  just  as  it  lets  the  settler's  milk 
cows  graze  without  any  charge.  There  are  water-power 
men  who  want  to  run  pipe  lines,   and  to  build  plants  and 


They  are  fastening  wire  to  the  trunks  of  trees 

develop  power  from  the  rivers  in  the  mountains.  These  are 
some  of  the  things,  but  there  are  many  more." 

Just  then  the  ranger's  horse  shies  and  wheels,  as  he 
catches  sight  of  a  coil  of  galvanized  wire  in  the  bend  of  the 
trail.  We  pass  several  men  stringing  a  telephone  line. 
They  are  fastening  the  wire  to  the  trunks  of  trees  instead 
of  stretching  it  on  poles.  It  is  the  strangest-looking  tele- 
phone line  we  ever  saw. 

"  You  will  see  a  great  deal  in  this  forest  that  looks  like 
rough  work  to  you,"  says  the  ranger.  "  The  Government 
does  not  give  us  all  the  money  we  need  for  improvements 


"Trails  and  telephone  lines  are  the  best  safeguards  against  fire 


72  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

in  the  forest.  But  If  you  lived  here,  and  a  forest  fire  was 
closing  in  around  your  home,  you  would  be  thankful  if  you 
could  send  a  message  for  help  over  that  roughly  strung 
wire.  These  telephone  lines  between  the  settlements  and 
the  rangers'  cabins  and  the  lookout  points  on  the  moun- 
tains are  worth  many  men.  Trails  and  telephone  lines  are 
the  best  safeguards  against  fires  —  telephones  to  call  in 
men,  and  trails  for  them  to  travel  over  with  their  pack 
horses  and  supplies." 

The  Cowboy. 

As  we  ride  on  we  see  many  signs  to  show  that  these 
National  Forests  are  not  solitudes.  We  pass  cattle  grazing 
in  the  v^alleys  and  on  the  lower  slopes,  and  sheep  grazing 
on  the  ridges  and  high  up  on  the  mountain  sides.  Both 
sheep  and  cattle  are  fat,  and  the  grass  is  thick  and  strong. 

We  chat  a  few  moments  with  a  cowboy  in  charge  of  a 
big  bunch  of  cattle,  who  looks  much  like  our  ranger,  except 
that  he  wears  different  clothes.  Lie  does  n't  seem  to  have 
any  grudge  against  the  National  Forest. 

"  In  the  old  days,  before  these  National  Forests  were 
made,"  he  says,  "  the  sheepmen  and  the  cattlemen  were 
always  quarrelling  over  which  should  have  the  range.  Sheep 
and  cattle  in  some  parts  of  the  mountains  do  not  do  well  on 
the  same  ground;  cattle  do  not  like  to  graze  where  sheep 
have  been,  for  the  sheep  graze  so  close  that  they  leave  very 
little  forage  behind  them. 

"  I  could  tell  you  true  stories  of  range  wars  which  would 
make  you  wonder  how  it  is  that  men  could  kill  each  other 
over  the  question  of  whose  stock  should  have  the  grass. 
This  went  on  with  satisfaction  to  nobody,  and  all  the  time 
the  range  got  poorer.  I  guess  what  nobody  Is  responsible 
for  nobody  will  take  care  of.  It  was  a  race  between  the 
sheepmen  and  the  cattlemen  to  see  which  could  get  their 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST 


73 


stock  first  on  the  range  in  the  spring,  so  that  the  new  grass 
was  trampled,  and  the  range  often  ruined  for  that  year,  be- 
fore the  season  had  really  begun.  This  kind  of  thing  going 
on  year  after  year  put  the  ranges  nearly  out  of  business,  and 
it  was  lean  cattle  and  scrawny  sheep  that  we  used  to  drive 
down  out  of  the  mountains  in  those  days. 


"The  Forest  Supervisor  puts  the  cattle  on  the  lower  slopes 

where  they  belong  " 


"  Now  it  is  all  different.  The  Forest  Supervisor  runs  this 
range,  and  he  runs  it  right.  He  puts  the  cattle  on  the  lower 
slopes,  where  they  belong,  and  he  puts  the  sheep  on  the  high 
ranges  where  they  do  best.  The  result  is  that  everybody 
gets  their  share,  and  the  range  is  getting  better  all  the  time. 
These  cattle  I  am  in  charge  of  will  be  so  fat  by  the  fall  that 
they  can  go  straight  to  the  packing  house  in  Chicago  or 
Kansas  City. 

"  I  am  for  the  Forest  Service.  It  knows  the  country  and 
it  knows  its  business.  In  the  beginning  we  all  tried  to  bluff 
the  Service,  but  it  did  n't  work.     Now  we  have  to  kick  some- 


74 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


times  to  let  them  know  we  are  not  too  happy,  but  if  they 
knew  how  happy  we  really  are,  it  ought  to  make  them  feel 
pretty  good. 

"  It  is  true  of  the  Supervisor  of  this  Forest  —  and  I  guess 
the  same  is  true  of  the  whole  Forest  Service  —  that  he  al- 
ways looks  after  the  little  fellow.     The  little  fellow  did  n't 


"  He  puts  the  sheep  on  the  high  ranges  where  they  do  best  " 

use  to  stand  much  of  a  show.  This  was  n't  a  healthy  country 
for  a  man  with  a  small  bunch  of  stock,  or  for  his  stock  either. 
The  big  man  took  most  of  the  range,  and  he  held  it  by 
the  strong  arm.  Now  that  is  all  over  and  done  with,  and 
everybody,  big  and  little,  gets  a  square  deal.  For  every 
permit  on  this  forest  for  a  man  to  run  a  big  bunch  of  sheep 
or  cattle,  there  are  a  hundred  permits  for  the  little  fellow 
with  only  a  few. 

"  That  is  n't  all  the  Forest  Service  is  doing  for  the  cattle- 
man and  the  sheepman.     It  is  trapping  and  shooting  the 


IN   A    NATIONAL    FOREST 


75 


wild  animals  which  make  trouble  for  the  sheep  and  cattle  — 
the  wolves,  the  bear,  the  coyotes,  and  the  mountain  lions. 
The  rangers  kill  some  of  them,  but  the  Forest  Service  also 
hires  hunters  who  do  nothing  else.  Every  wolf  or  lion  killed 
is  worth  a  hundred  dollars  to  the  stockmen;  for  if  he  lived 
he  would  cost  that  much  a  year  in  sheep  and  cattle  destroyed. 


"Straight  to  the  packing  house  in  Chicago  or  Kansas  City" 

Of  course,  we  are  not  telling  everybody  this  —  but  what  we 
stockmen  pay  in  grazing  fees  is  cheap,  even  if  we  only  got 
rid  of  the  wild  animals,  to  say  nothing  of  the  better  range 
we  have  under  Government  regulation.  \ou  will  pass  a 
hunter's  cabin  a  little  way  up  the  trail.  Take  a  look  at  the 
skins  nailed  up  to  dry." 

We  leave  the  cowboy  reluctantly,  for  like  the  ranger 
he  knows  his  business. 

"  Of  course,  there  are  still  a  few  kickers,"  says  the  ranger. 


J3 
O 


3 
OS 

a. 


o 


IN   A    NATIONAL    FOREST 


77 


as  we  wind  on  up  the  trail;  "  and  there  always  will  be  —  but 
the  only  kind  we  are  having  any  trouble  with  on  this  forest 
are  those  who  want  something  they  ought  not  to  have.  That 
kind  of  citizen  is  not  hard  to  handle,  so  long  as  our  superior 


Copyright,  igio,  by  Erwin  E.  Smith 

We  leave  the  cowboy  reluctantly 

officers  at  headquarters  back  us  up;  and  they  never  fail  to, 
in  every  case  when  we  are  right." 


TJie  Timber  Sale. 

"  Now,"  says  the  ranger,  "  if  you  don't  mind  making  a 
little  side  trip,  we  can  drop  off  into  the  valley  here  to  the 


78 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


right,   and  see  where  lumbermen  are  cutting  timber  which 
they  bought  from  the  Government." 

We  follow  down  the  north  slope  of  the  mountain,  and  soon 
begin  to  see  signs  of  the  cutting.  The  general  methods  of 
logging  are  the  same  as  we  saw  before  in  the  Cascades;  but 
there  seems  to  be  a  different  purpose  behind  the  whole  work. 


The  brush  is  burned  when  the  ground  is  moist 

The  stumps  are  much  lower,  no  big  logs  have  been  left  in  the 
tops,  and  the  trees  have  been  thrown  so  skilfully  that  they 
have  done  very  little  damage.  All  the  boughs  and  brush 
have  been  thrown  together  into  piles,  the  big  branches  on 
the  inside  and  the  smaller  stuff  on  the  outside.  These,  the 
ranger  tells  us,  will  be  burned  when  the  grouml  is  moist,  or 
after  the  first  light  snowfall,  when  thev  will  burn  slowly 
and  clean,  and  will  not  scorch  the  trees  left  standing. 

Were  it  not  for  the  keen  eyes  of  the  ranger,  who  points 
out  a  few  places  here  and  there  where  the  cutting  has  not 
been  so  carefully  done,  it  wouUl  all  look  perfect  to  us,  as 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST 


79 


indeed  it  almost  is,  in  view  of  the  actual  conditions  under 
which  the  loggers  have  worked. 

Of  course,  compared  with  what  we  saw  in  Europe,  it 
is  very  wasteful  lumbering,  but  in  Europe  the  whole  tree 
can  be  used,  the  market  is  nearby,  and  wages  are  very  low. 
The  woodchoppers  we  talked  to  In  that  European  forest  got 


Or  after  the  first  snowfall 


only  about  thirty  cents  a  day.  These  lumberjacks  who  are 
logging  in  the  National  Forest  are  paid  from  a  dollar  and  a 
half  to  nearly  four  dollars  a  day,  depending  on  their  work. 
The  timber  we  saw  being  cut  in  Europe  brought  fifty 
and  seventy-five  dollars  a  thousand  board  feet,  and  even 
the  bundles  of  branches  brought  several  times  what  it  cost  to 
gather  them.  The  timber  cut  here  in  the  Cascades  —  in  this 
rough  country  where  logging  costs  so  much  —  brings  only 
about  fifteen  dollars  a  thousand  board  feet;  and  if  you  tried 
to  sell  any  one  brushwood  they  would  probably  laugh   at 


8o  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

you,  or,  still  more  likely,  swear  at  you,  or  possibly  they  might 
do  neither,  but  simply  put  you  down  as  crazy. 

One  always  has  to  bear  in  mind  the  conditions.  Com- 
pared with  Europe,  this  lumbering  is  crude.  Compared 
with  the  lumbering  we  saw  on  private  lands  in  the  Cascades, 
it  is  excellent  work,  which  harvests  the  ripe  crop  carefully 
and  wisely,  which  reduces  the  danger  from  fire,  and  which 
encourages  the  growth  of  a  second  crop.  If  all  the  forests 
in  the  United  States  were  handled  like  this  National  Forest, 
it  is  clear  we  need  not  fear  a  timber  famine. 

How  different  the  old  cuttings  look  from  those  we  saw  in 
the  Cascades  before!  The  brush  has  been  burned  up  clean, 
and  we  see  a  sprinkling  of  little  trees  which  are  fast  filling 
up  the  openings.  When  we  remember  that  this  timber  in  the 
National  Forest  was  bought  and  paid  for  at  the  market 
price,  and  that  it  will  be  sold  no  less  profitably  at  the  market 
price  than  timber  cut  wastefully  from  private  lands,  we  see 
that  this  whole  question  of  forestry  is  largely  a  matter  of 
education  and  of  nothing  else.  It  is  clear  that  it  pays,  and  the 
chief  difiiculty  is  that  most  lumbermen  have  not  yet  learned 
how  well  it  pays. 

How  the  Fires  Start. 

"  Now,"  says  our  ranger,  "  if  you  have  seen  enough  of 
this  timber  sale,  we  will  leave  it  and  follow  the  trail  along 
the  ridge.  The  woods  are  very  dry,  and  1  like  to  ride  that 
trail  every  day,  because  there  are  good  lookout  points  on 
it  for  forest  fires." 

As  the  horses  plod  up  the  steady  grade,  the  bridle  reins 
hanging  loose,  the  ranger  talks  about  the  fires  which  seem 
to  be  the  worst  enemy  of  the  Forest  Service. 

"  You  sec,"  he  says,  "  a  fire  in  a  forest  is  a  good  deal  like 
a  fire  in  a  building.  If  \ou  reach  it  just  as  it  starts,  or  soon 
after,  it  is  an  easy  matter  to  put  it  out;  but  it  it  gets  a  few 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  8i 

hours'  start,  especially  when  the  wind  is  blowing,  many  men 
cannot  do  what  one  man  could  have  done  in  the  begin- 
ning. The  bigger  a  forest  fire  gets,  the  hotter  it  is  and  the 
faster  it  travels.  The  fires  you  may  have  seen  back  East 
burning  through  the  light  ground-cover  of  the  wood  lots 
and  the  patches  of  second  growth,  looked  bad  enough ;  but 
they  are  no  more  like  the  fires  which  burn  through  these 
great  forests,  the  timber  pitchy  and  the  ground  covered 
with  branches  and  fallen  trees  dry  as  a  bone  in  the  summer 
season,  than  the  trickle  of  a  little  brook  is  like  the  rush  of 
a  great  river  in  flood. 

"  How  do  these  fires  start?  Railroad  locomotives  start 
many  of  them  from  sparks  thrown  out  of  the  smokestacks. 
That 's  a  good  reason  why  more  engines  ought  to  burn  oil 
instead  of  coal,  because  oil  engines  throw  out  no  sparks. 
Then  there  are  the  people  who  are  continually  traveling 
through  the  forest,  stockmen,  and  '  prospectors  '  looking 
for  minerals,  and  hunters,  and  campers  from  the  cities  who 
are  out  for  a  good  time  —  all  these  people  have  to  make 
fires  to  cook  by  and  to  keep  them  warm  at  night,  and  some 
of  them  are  careless  in  spite  of  all  we  are  doing  to  teach 
them  to  be  careful.  Lightning  starts  many  fires.  We  have 
electric  storms  in  these  mountains,  which  bring  little  or  no 
rain,  but  much  thunder  and  lightning.  If  the  lightning  strikes 
a  tree,  and  especially  a  dry,  dead  one,  it  often  means  a  fire. 

"  Then,"  and  the  ranger's  lips  tighten,  "  there  are  the 
fires  which  start  because  some  man  lights  them  oir  purpose. 
Sometimes  such  men  have  a  grudge  again-'  die  forest  officers 
for  refusing  them  something  they  ought  not  to  have.  Some-, 
times  they  have  a  general  grudge  against  the  Government 
for  taking  care  of  these  forests  in  the  interest  of  the  whole 
people,  and  not  letting  men  steal  the  timber  and  rob  the 
range  by  overgrazing,  as  some  of  them  used  to  do,  and  would 
still  like  to  do.     Now  and  then  such  a  man  sets  fire  to  the 


o 


too 

t/3 
O 

CI 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  83 

woods,  thinking  in  that  way  he  will  get  even.  He  is  the 
kind  of  man  who  shoots  a  President,  or  blows  up  a  building, 
or  strikes  down  men  from  behind;  and  he  ought  to  be 
punished  as  they  are  punished.  But  it  is  hard  to  catch  such 
men  and  hard  to  prove  anything  on  them  afterwards." 

Now  we  are  on  the  ridge  trail,  and  we  get  off  our  horses 
and  stop  awhile.  Before  us  lie  like  a  map  wave  after  wave 
of  mountains  as  far  as  we  can  see.  The  ranger  tells  us 
their  names,  and  points  out  the  natural  boundaries  of  his 
own  great  district.  One  hundred  thousand  acres  sounds 
hke  a  great  deal  for  one  man  to  take  care  of,  but  when  we 
see  It  spread  out  before  us,  it  seems  bigger  still.  Twenty 
miles  long  and  nearly  half  as  wide,  with  mountains  eight 
thousand  feet  high  within  it  —  a  wilderness  except  for  some 
rough  trails  anci  telephone  lines,  and  a  few  settlers'  cabins, 
and  bands  of  cattle  and  sheep  —  this  district  is  a  heavy 
charge  upon  the  quiet,  resolute  man  who  points  it  out  to  us. 

How  well  he  seems  to  know  it  all !  He  talks  about  the 
mountains  and  the  valleys  as  the  city  man  talks  of  the  tall 
buildings  and  the  streets.  Every  peak  and  every  gap,  every 
shadowed  streak  of  green  which  marks  a  valley,  has  a  mean- 
ing to  him,  and  often  a  name.  This  man  evidently  has  a  map 
of  his  district  in  his  mind  as  well  as  in  his  saddle  pockets. 

As  the  ranger  points  out  a  notch  between  the  mountains, 
so  far  away  that  we  can  scarcely  see  its  outline  against  the 
haze;  and  as  he  tells  us  that  through  this  notch  used  to  pass 
one  of  the  main  travel  routes  to  the  Pacific  Coast  before  the 
days  of  the  railroads,  his  manner  changes  and  his  gaze 
grows  keener.  He  takes  his  field  glasses  from  their  worn 
leather  case,  steps  on  a  big  boulder,  and  looks  long  at  some- 
thing we  do  not  see.  Then  he  unfolds  his  map,  lays  it  down 
on  the  rock,  and  follows  its  lines  intently,  looking  from  it 
to  the  distant  notch. 

Soon  he  is  sure;  then  he  turns  to  us. 


X 


o 


O 


c 
a, 


U5 


3 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST 


85 


"Fire  just  this  side  of  Saddle  Mountain  —  not  much 
smoke  but  there  soon  will  be,  with  this  wind  blowin^j.  I  '11 
go  on  to  my  cabin  and  get  my  tools  and  some  grub  to  eat 
as  I  travel.  You  had  better  go  on  with  me,  and  make  your- 
selves comfortable." 

We  swing  into  the  deep  saddles.     It  is  rapid  traveling 


1  ^^^^ 

*'"              J^TS^HRk^B^^^^^^nti 

A.  ''^ 

^k       j4    />                        "** 

J^H^^^I 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^K^^r^^    "^^^Bl^^^^^^^k* 

%> 

IHlRim 

"  Fire  just  this  side  of  Saddle  Mountain  " 


now,  and  half  an  hour  brings  us  to  the  ranger's  cabin,  a 
trim  log  house  with  a  good  pasture  near  it.  But  we  are 
watching  the  ranger,  who  moves  without  flurry,  but  so  surely 
and  quickly  that  it  is  clear  he  has  done  this  often  before. 
Fifteen  minutes  sees  him  in  the  saddle  again,  a  sack  of  grain 
thrown  across  it,  axe  and  mattock  tied  to  it,  his  canteen 
full  of  water,  and  his  canvas  pouch  holding  the  food  which 
must  last  him  for  several  days. 

We  admire  the  ranger's  wife  almost  as  much  as  we  do 
the  ranger;  for  without  her  help  he  could  not  have  made 
so  quick  a  start ;   and  without  her  cheerful  good-bye  he  could 


86 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


not  have  left  with  a  heart  so  Hght  upon  a  mission  which 
has  danger  and  much  hard  work  in  it. 

Shall  we  go  with  him?  Not  really  with  him,  because 
strong  as  our  hearts  might  be,  we  do  not  know  how  to  play 
the  game  which  he  must  play;  and  so  we  would  be  more 
hindrance  than  help  to  him.  But  we  might  pretend  that  we 
go,  so  as  to  see  how  he  plays  the  game,  all  by  himself. 


Half  an  hour  brings  us  to  the  ranger's  cabin 


It  is  two  o'clock.  The  fire  is  twenty  miles  away  —  twenty 
miles  of  dense  forest,  rock  ridges,  canyon,  and  mountain 
side,  which  is  easily  the  equal  of  fifty  miles  o\er  even  a  moun- 
tain road.  F'or  fifteen  miles  the  ranger  has  a  trail,  but  for 
the  last  fi\-e  he  must  pick  his  way  through  the  forest,  as  the 
settlers  had  to  do  three  hundred  vears  ago. 

He  co\"ers  the  twcntx'  miles  in  sixteen  hours.  Four  are 
spent  in  rest  for  him  and  his  horse,  which  is  footsore  and 
jaded  from  the  struggle  o\er  ledges,  fallen  trees,  and  the 
roof-like  mountain  slopes  of  the  last  fi\e  trailless  miles. 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  87 

Fighting    the   Fire. 

The  fire  Is  not  hard  to  find.  When  the  ranger  is  within 
several  miles  of  its  front  he  smells  the  smoke,  which  soon  be- 
gins to  thicken,  and  deer  and  smaller  animals  begin  to  pass 
by  him,  noticing  him  as  little  in  their  terror  as  if  he  were  one 
of  themselves.  He  pickets  his  horse  in  a  mountain  meadow, 
and  makes  his  way  on  foot  toward  the  fire.  To  him  it  is  a 
familiar  enemy,  whose  methods  of  attack  he  well  under- 
stands. He  wastes  no  time,  as  we  might  do,  in  mere  wonder 
at  a  sight  which  would  hold  our  eyes  spellbound  until  the 
acrid  smoke  made  us  turn  away  —  the  swirling,  savage  on- 
rush of  forest  fire  through  resinous,  green  timber  in  the  dry 
season,  a  high  wind  behind  it,  and  a  sea  of  forest  in  front. 

Yesterday  it  was  a  little  creeping,  crawling  blaze  only 
a  few  yards  square,  working  out  from  a  camp  fire  which 
seemed  to  be  dead,  but  which  still  held  a  few  glowing  em- 
bers ;  so  the  man  who  made  it  went  on  his  way  unthinkinglv, 
leaving  the  source  of  sure  destruction  behind  him.  Then, 
a  little  thin  line  of  fire,  eating  through  the  dry  "  duff  "  of 
the  forest  floor,  bursting  into  tiny  flames  as  it  found  twigs 
and  branches  to  feed  on  —  a  fire  which  a  boy  could  have 
stamped  out  with  his  feet  or  smothered  with  the  blows  of  a 
green  bough.  To-day,  an  avalanche  of  smoke  and  fire,  roar- 
ing like  a  thousand  trains,  trav^eling  faster  than  a  man;  novv^ 
wrapping  whole  trees  in  flame,  now  under  a  puff  of  wind 
flashing  across  acres  of  tree  tops;  sometimes  a  ground  fire, 
sometimes  a  crown  fire,  sometimes  a  wall  of  flame  a  hundred 
feet  high,  in  front  of  it  a  furnace-like  wind  laden  with  smoke 
and  sparks,  and  carrying  burning  branches  like  feathers; 
behind  it  the  stench  of  fumes,  the  pall  of  smoke  settling  over 
a  forest  blasted  where  it  stands,  except  for  the  few  green 
patches  where  through  some  trick  of  wind  or  draught,  the 
fire  missed  its  prey. 


88 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


What  can  one  man  do  in  the  face  of  such  a  fire?  That 
little  the  ranger  does  unflinchingly.  He  starts  a  backfire 
half  a  mile  ahead,  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  slope.  By  raking 
away  leaves  and  litter  he  makes  a  rough  firebreak,  along  a 


A  forest  blasted  where  it  stands 


narrow  ridge.  But  he  might  as  well  expect  to  do  the  w^ork 
of  fifty,  as  to  get  such  a  fire  as  this  under  control  unaided; 
and  as  the  day  lengthens,  the  ranger,  his  eyes  and  face 
smarting  from  the  heat  and  smoke,  his  clothes  torn  and 
grimy,  his  mouth  parched  for  water  he  has  no  time  to  get, 
his  whole  body  rebelHng  against  the  tremendous  toil  of 
fighting  fire  unaided,  begins  to  look  anxiously  for  the  help 
for  which  he  telephoned  before  he  left  his  cabin.     Not  un- 


IN   A    NATIONAL    FOREST  89 

til  the  morning  of  the  second  day  does  help  come,  and  then 
it  is  but  a  handful  of  men  in  charge  of  a  ranger  from  a 
neighboring  district.  Even  to  get  the  fire  fighters  together, 
mounted,  equipped,  and  on  the  ground  so  soon  in  this  remote 
and  thinly  settled  country  was  in  itself  a  notable  achieve- 
ment. 

To  get  an  outline  from  our  ranger  of  the  size  and  di- 
rection of  the  fire  and  of  the  lay  of  the  land,  is  the  work,  of 
a  few  minutes.  Then  while  the  ranger  gets  the  rest  they 
insist  that  he  shall  take,  this  little  body  of  men,  jaded  by 
many  hours  in  the  saddle,  tackle  the  harder  work  ahead  with- 
out thought  of  rest  for  themselves. 

To  understand  what  they  endure  and  what  they  accom- 
plish in  the  next  four  days  is  impossible  unless  we  were 
actually  with  them.  They  are  constantly  on  the  fire  line. 
To  do  a  man's  work  there  calls  for  no  less  courage  and 
efficiency  than  men  must  have  who  acquit  themselves  well 
on  the  firing  line  in  battle.  There  are  no  newspaper  cor- 
respondents nearby  to  send  stories  to  the  papers  about  the 
brave  things  they  do;  the  spur  of  rapid  promotion  for  gal- 
lantry in  action  is  lacking;  the  support  which  comes  by 
fighting  shoulder  to  shoulder,  or  even  in  open  order  on  the 
skirmish  line  is  not  theirs,  because  while  they  work  under 
one  plan  and  together,  they  can  seldom  see  each  other  for 
the  swirl  of  smoke.  Those  four  days  mean  constant  fight- 
ing against  an  enemy  which  is  cruel  and  powerful  and  over- 
whelming as  no  human  enemies  are.  It  means  scorched 
hands  and  faces,  lungs  and  throats  burned  from  the  rasp 
of  the  wood  fumes,  and  the  physical  and  mental  torture 
of  exhaustion.  It  means  danger  always,  and  sometimes  the 
near  peril  of  death. 

There  are  times  during  those  four  days  when,  as  the  fire 
Is  almost  under  control,  a  sudden  gust  of  wind,  followed  by 
the  breaking  out  of  fire  afresh  all  along  the  line,  suddenly 


90  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

changes  the  problem  into  one  of  saving  Hves  instead  of 
saving  the  forest;  and  again  and  again  this  little  body  of 
hardy  and  resourceful  men  meet  and  overcome  the  crisis 
and  turn  back  from  saving  themselves  to  saving  the  trees. 
Four  days  sees  the  fire  under  control.  It  also  sees  ten 
thousand  acres  of  timber  destroyed,  and  one  fire  fighter's 
shoulder  broken  by  a  falling  limb.  The  bald  report  which 
goes  into  the  Supervisor's  ofiice  over  the  telephone  is  that 
the  fire  on  Saddle  Mountain  is  under  control,  with  an  out- 
line of  the  damage  done ;  and  our  ranger  and  his  companions 
go  back  to  their  other  duties,  with  the  certainty  that  many 
times  before  the  summer  is  past  they  must  again  face  a  trial 
of  strength  with  forest  fire. 


Brave  Ranger  Pulaski. 

These  rangers  are  taking  care  of  our  property.  We  ought 
to  learn  all  we  can  about  them.  The  summer  of  1910,  by 
reason  of  great  drought  and  unusually  high  winds,  was  the 
worst  for  forest  fires  that  the  West  has  ever  known.  In 
Montana,  Idaho,  and  Oregon  the  danger  was  greatest. 

On  the  Coeur  d'  Alene  National  Forest  in  northern  Iciaho, 
Ranger  Pulaski  had  under  him  forty  men,  who  after  many 
hours  of  hard  work  had  gotten  a  big  fire  practically  under 
control.  Suddenly  the  wind  strengthened  until  it  blew  a 
gale.  It  immediately  became  a  question  of  saving  the  lives 
of  the  men.  I  he  fire  fighters  were  in  deep  forest,  many 
miles  from  a  railroad,  and  far  from  any  clearing. 

Pulaski  remembered  that  within  a  mile  of  where  they  were 
working  there  was  an  abandoned  mine  shaft,  running  back 
about  forty  feet  into  the  hillside.  He  rushed  his  ?nen  to 
the  shaft  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  told  thcni  as  they 
passed  through  their  camp  to  catch  up  their  blankets  as  they 
ran.     llic  shaft  reached,  Pulaski  hurried  his  men  into  it,  and. 


IN   A    NATIONAL    FOREST  91 

packed  like  sardines,  they  filled  it  full.  Pulaski  placed  him- 
self at  the  opening,  across  which  he  stretched  a  blanket. 

Within  a  few  minutes  after  the  men  were  in  the  shaft, 
the  fire  came.  The  blanket  at  the  opening  caught  and  Pu- 
laski jerked  it  away  and  hung  up  another,  which  caught  in 
its  turn.  The  blanket  caught  again  and  again  and  each  time 
Pulaski  replaced  it,  until  towards  the  last  he  held  the  blanket 
across  the  opening  with  his  bare  hands.  The  shaft  grew 
hotter  and  hotter,  and  the  smoke  and  fumes  grew  thicker 
and  thicker,  until  the  men's  sufferings  were  almost  beyond 
human  endurance.  They  began  to  break  for  the  opening. 
Pulaski,  whose  strength  was  great  like  his  courage,  for  a 
while  forced  them  back.  Seeing  that  he  would  soon  be  over- 
powered, and  that  his  men  would  rush  to  their  certain  death, 
he  drew  his  revolver,  and  said  that  he  would  kill  the  first 
man  who  broke  away. 

In  perhaps  twenty  minutes  the  worst  of  the  fire  passed 
by.  Five  of  the  men  in  the  shaft  were  dead  from  suffoca- 
tion; the  other  thirty-five  were  alive.  Pulaski  was  blinded 
and  seriously  burned  upon  the  face  and  arms.  It  was  three 
months  before  his  sight  was  partially  restored.  Had  not 
his  heroism  and  presence  of  mind  been  what  they  were, 
he  would  have  lost  all  of  his  men  instead  of  five.  That  is 
the  kind  of  men  there  are  in  the  Forest  Service. 

Another  Forest  officer,  Deputy  Supervisor  Thenon  of  the 
Clearwater  National  Forest,  was  caught  with  sixty  men  in 
much  the  same  way.  He  took  them  on  the  run  into  a  great 
cedar  swamp  upon  the  banks  of  Moose  Creek,  a  tributary  of 
the  Clearwater.  Not  in  the  memory  of  the  oldest  settler  or 
Indian  had  this  swamp  ever  caught  fire.  But  on  this  day  of 
as  great  drought  as  the  Northwest  has  ever  known,  with  a 
hurricane  blowing,  it  caught  and  burned  like  tinder.  Thenon 
soon  saw  that  his  men  could  not  live  in  the  swamp,  and  he 
ordered  them  to  take  their  blankets  and  to  get  into  the  river. 


92  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

Under  his  instructions  each  man  soaked  his  blanket  and 
got  under  it,  so  that  it  formed  a  cone  around  his  head.  He 
then  stayed  under  water  as  long  as  possible,  coming  up  for 
a  few  seconds  to  breathe  under  the  blanket,  and  then  sub- 
merging himself  again.  The  fire  swept  right  over  their 
heads.  Afterwards,  Thenon  said  that  it  sounded  like  the 
roar  of  a  thousand  trains  crossing  a  thousand  trestles.  He 
saved  every  man,  and  his  horse  as  well,  which  he  had  taken 
with  him  into  the  river. 

Ranger  Kaufman  got  caught  with  a  crew  of  twenty-five 
men  on  the  Cabinet  National  Forest,  and  they  had  to  run 
for  it.  The  situation  was  desperate.  The  ranger  led  his 
men  out  on  a  rock  slide  on  the  side  of  a  mountain,  and 
ordered  them  to  pile  up  a  barricade  of  stones  as  rapidly  as 
possible  parallel  with  the  line  of  fire,  and  then  to  lie  down 
behind  it.  This  they  did,  and  every  man  behind  the  rock 
barrier  was  saved.  Two  men,  who  under  stress  of  fear  and 
confusion  broke  away,  were  found  dead  a  few  hundred 
yards  from  where  their  companions  had  lain  in  safety. 

There  are  many  such  true  stories  of  the  fight  the  men  of 
the  Forest  Service  made  against  the  great  fires  in  the  summer 
of  1910.  Of  these  brave  men,  eighty  gave  up  their  lives. 
Those  lives  were  lost  no  less  honorably  than  if  they  had 
been  spent  in  fighting  against  human  enemies  rather  than 
against  the  enemy  of  all  men.  As  a  result  of  the  devoted 
service  rendered  by  these  men  and  their  companions,  forest 
fires  which  might  have  been  a  still  more  terrible  national 
calamity  were  finally  put  out.  Had  the  Forest  Service 
been  given  more  men  in  the  beginning  to  patrol  against 
fire,  the  fires  would  have  been  subdued  before  there  was 
any  material  loss  at  all. 

What  the  Forest  Service  has  done  with  its  pitifully  in- 
sufficient force  to  protect  the  great  National  Forests  from 
fire  is  one  of  the  things  of  which  all   Americans  should  he 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  93 

proud.  When  we  remember  that  the  standing  timber  and 
the  other  resources  In  the  National  Forests  are  worth  more 
than  two  thousand  million  dollars,  we  understand  part  of 
what  the  Forest  Service  is  doing  for  the  nation. 


Fire  not  the  Only  Enemy. 

There  is  another  picture  which  has  no  self-sacrifice  in  it. 
We  ought  to  look  at  that  too,  because  it  is  no  less  important 
than  the  other.  While  these  rangers  have  been  riding  the 
lonely  trails,  fighting  fire  unflinchingly,  meeting  efficiently 
and  cheerfully  the  myriad  calls  upon  them  by  the  people, 
some  other  men  have  done  all  in  their  power  to  destroy 
the  great  system  for  preserving  the  people's  forests.  Men, 
frock-coated  and  wide  of  girth,  have  balanced  ponderously 
before  their  mahogany  desks,  and  made  the  Senate  Cham- 
ber ring  with  torrents  of  abuse  of  these  same  rangers,  and 
of  the  policy  of  thrift  for  which  they  stand  and  strive. 
Were  it  not  for  the  attacks  of  such  men  upon  the  Forest 
Service,  It  would  have  had  more  nearly  the  money  needed 
for  Its  work,  and  many  of  the  lives  which  were  lost  and 
most  of  the  timber  which  was  burned  would  have  been 
saved. 

The  Forest  Service  has  had  to  meet  the  attacks  of  those 
members  of  Congress  who  are  in  effect  representatives  and 
servants  of  the  great  interests,  just  as  men  on  the  other 
side  are  the  representatives  and  servants  of  the  people. 
The  National  Forests  are  a  rich  prize.  The  timber,  the 
grass,  and  the  water  powers  would  make  a  few  men  rich 
Instead  of  helping  all,  If  the  few  men  had  their  way;  so 
through  their  agents  in  Congress  these  few  men  still  struggle 
for  the  rich  prize  they  will  never  gain.  The  American 
people,  that  great  silent  power  whose  weapon  Is  public  sen- 
timent, and  which  some  men  can  lead  but  none  can  drive, 


94  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

believe  in  the  National  Forests.     And  what  they  believe  in 
they  will  defend. 

The  Forester. 

But  public  sentiment  awakens  slowly;  and  there  have 
been  times,  now  happily  gone  forever,  when  the  very  ex- 
istence of  the  National  Forests  was  threatened.  That  they 
stood  through  these  years  is  chiefly  because  in  one  man,  and 
he  the  Forester,  was  combined  the  high  qualities  of  leader- 
ship and  statesmanship.  This  man  is  Gifford  Pinchot, 
under  whose  patriotic  and  wise  direction  the  Government 
forest  work  grew  from  nearly  nothing  to  the  great  national 
power  for  the  public  welfare  which  it  is  to-day.  His  work 
will  live  longer  than  even  the  tall  trees  will  live.  He  has 
aided  as  few  other  men  have  ever  done  to  make  America  a 
pleasant  and  a  fruitful  land  in  which  to  dwell.  Not  only 
the  green  forests  are  a  perpetual  token  of  his  usefulness, 
but  the  whirring  sawmills  and  the  busy  wood-working  fac- 
tories, the  even  flow  of  forest-fed  streams,  the  timber  which 
is  the  raw  product  out  of  which  comes  work  and  homes  and 
happiness  for  millions,  are  the  things  he  aims  for  and  has 
won,  and  which  will  do  him  still  greater  honor.  For  no 
great  forester  cherishes  the  forest  for  its  own  sake,  much 
as  he  may  love  its  beauty  and  its  charm,  but  only  for  its  use- 
fulness to  man.  This  is  true  of  (jifford  Pinchot,  as  It  is 
true  of  Henry  S.  Graves,  another  great  forester  who  is 
now  at  the  head  of  the  Forest  Service. 

Private  Forests. 

Anv  man  who  takes  good  care  of  his  own  private  forest 
makes  it  really  a  National  Forest,  because  he  makes  it  per- 
manently useful  to  the  nation   as  well   as  to  himself. 

Three  fourths  of  all  the  forests  in  the  United  States  are 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST  95 

in  private  hands;  but  only  about  one  per  cent  of  these 
private  forests  are  being  properly  used,  and  protected  from 
fire. 

To  protect  all  privately  owned  forests  in  the  United 
States  from  fire  would  cost  about  one  fifth  of  the  value  of 
the  timber  burned  each  year. 

It  seems  strange  that  American  lumbermen,  who  like 
most  other  American  citizens  are  patriotic,  alert,  and  in- 
telligent, should  go  on  wasting  what  they  have  with  great 
loss  to  themselves  and  to  us  all.     Why  is  it? 

It  certainly  is  not  because  they  have  not  been  told,  for  the 
Forest  Service  has  given  its  time  and  effort  to  telling  them, 
no  less  vigorously  than  to  managing  and  protecting  the 
great  National  Forests.  It  has  made  of  itself  a  huge  "  Bu- 
reau of  Information "  for  lumbermen  who  wish  to  find 
out  how  best  to  handle  their  own  forest  holdings. 

The  real  reason  why  more  lumbermen  do  not  practise 
forestry  is  partly  because  only  a  few  states  are  taxing  the 
forests  fairly.  The  taxes  are  often  so  high,  particularly 
on  cutover  land,  that  they  discourage  many  lumbermen  from 
holding  and  protecting  their  cutover  lands  until  they  can 
grow  a  second  crop  of  timber.  The  real  reason  is  also 
partly  because  timber  does  not  yet  bring  generally  what  it 
will  cost  to  produce  it  again. 

It  costs  a  good  deal  of  money  to  grow  a  thousand  board 
feet.  We  must  charge  against  the  timber  crop  a  fair  in- 
terest upon  the  capital  invested  in  the  land  on  which  it 
grows,  until  the  timber  is  ripe  for  the  axe;  there  are  the 
taxes  every  year;  there  is  the  cost,  also  every  year,  of  hiring 
men  to  patrol  the  forest  on  the  lookout  for  fire;  and  there 
is  the  cost  of  leaving  seed  trees  after  logging,  and  of  piling 
and  burning  the  brush.  All  these  items  taken  together  m.ake 
a  cost  of  between  five  and  ten  dollars  for  growing  a  thou- 
sand board  feet,  depending  upon  the  kind  of  trees,  how  fast 


96  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

they  grow,  and  the  value  of  the  land.  This  is  more  than 
twice  as  much  as  "  stumpage  "  usually  sells  for  in  the  United 
States;  by  "stumpage"  is  meant  the  timber  contained  in 
standing  trees,  which  is  estimated  and  sold  at  so  much  for 
each  estimated  thousand  feet  of  lumber  in  the  trees.  When 
taxes  on  forest  land  are  lower  and  stumpage  brings  more, 
all  lumbermen  must  practise  forestry,  either  of  their  own 
free  will  or  by  the  will  of  the  people. 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  think  about  these  problems  when  we 
go  into  the  woods,  or  when  we  talk  with  lumbermen.  They 
are  all  real  problems,  and  upon  their  being  worked  out 
wisely  depends  the  question  whether  by  the  time  we  are  old 
there  will  be  enough  timber  grown  in  the  United  States  for 
all  the  purposes  for  which  timber  is  needed. 


Teaching  the  People. 

Forests  not  only  grow  wood,  of  which  our  need  is  only 
second  to  our  need  for  food,  but  they  also  regulate  the  flow 
of  streams;  they  are  the  home  of  most  game  birds  and 
animals;  they  temper  the  climate;  and  their  product  fur- 
nishes one  of  the  chief  sources  of  employment  for  men  and 
women.  They  are  necessary  to  our  ci\ilization,  to  our 
prosperity,  and  to  the  v^ery  existence  of  this  great  nation. 

The  Forest  Service  is  teaching  the  people  how  to  care  for 
their  forests,  as  well  as  showing  them  how,  by  its  manage- 
ment of  the  National  Forests.  People  ask  the  Service  many 
kinds  of  questions,  and  it  sets  its  trained  foresters  to  getting 
the  answers.     These  are  some  of  the  questions: 

"  I  ha\  e  a  wood  lot,"  says  the  farmer.  "  It  is  in  poor 
shape  because  I  have  taken  no  care  of  it.  What  can  I  do 
to  make  it  yield  more?  Wood  used  to  be  plentiful  and 
cheap  around  licrc,  ami  T  thought  it  would  be  so  always. 
But  now  I  need  c\cry  stick  I  can  raise." 


IN    A    NATIONAL    FOREST 


97 


More  than  a  million  farmers  need  to  have  that  question 
answered.  All  the  wood  lots  in  the  United  States  together 
would  make  an  area  larger  than  Germany.  Most  of  it  is 
yielding  very  little,  and  some  of  it  does  not  yield  enough 
to  pay  taxes.  All  of  it  can  be  made  by  handling  it  carefully 
to  yield  firewood  or  fence  posts  abundantly,  as  well  as  wood 
for  other  uses  on  the  farm. 

"  We  have  a  hundred  thousand  acres  of  timber  land," 
says  the  lumber  company.  "  Come  and  study  it  and  tell  us 
how  you  think  it  should  be  managed.  In  the  old  days  we 
would  have  skinned  it  and  moved  on;  but  times  are  not 
what  they  used  to  be.  Timber  land  is  scarce  and  it  comes 
high;  and  we  have  got  so  much  money  tied  up  in  our  saw- 
mill and  the  rest  of  our  plant  that  we  must  have  timber 
to  work  on  straight  along." 

The  men  who  need  that  question  answered  own  most  of 
the  standing  timber  In  the  United  States. 

Another  farmer  may  say,  as  many  of  them  do: 

"  I  pay  a  good  deal  more  for  fence  posts  than  I  used  to 
pay,  but  they  don't  last  any  longer  in  the  ground.  Can  you 
tell  me  how  to  pickle  them  In  some  preservative  so  that 
they  will  last  longer?  I  have  heard  that  it  is  worth  trying, 
and  I  want  to  know  all  about  it;  just  how  to  do  It,  and  how 
much  it  costs,  and  what  results  I  may  expect." 

Or  another  company  may  say: 

"  We  are  not  in  the  lumber  business.  We  are  in  the  rail- 
road business.  We  buy  timber  to  use;  we  don't  produce  it. 
It  takes  several  million  ties  each  year  to  build  new  tracks 
and  to  keep  our  present  lines  in  repair.  These  ties  cost  a  lot 
to  buy  and  put  in  the  track,  and  they  rot  out  in  a  few  years. 
If  we  could  make  them  last  two  or  three  times  as  long  it 
would  save  us  something.     How  shall  we  set  about  It?  " 

There  are  about  seven  hundred  million  wooden  ties  In 
railroad  tracks  In  the  United  States.     If  they  had  all  been 


98  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

pickled  in  creosote  or  some  other  good  preservative  before 
being  laid,  it  would  mean  a  saving  to  the  railroads,  through 
the  increased  life  of  these  ties  in  use,  of  about  sixteen  mil- 
lion dollars  a  year.  It  would  mean  a  still  larger  saving  to 
the  country  through  making  our  forests  last  longer. 


Tzvo  Great   Tasks. 

So  you  see  that  the  Forest  Service  has  two  great  tasks: 
to  manage  the  National  Forests  so  as  to  make  them  perma- 
nently useful  to  the  whole  people,  and  to  teach  Americans 
how  to  make  the  forests  they  own  last  longer  and  produce 
more,  through  better  methods  of  logging  and  fire  protec- 
tion, and  more  conservative  use  of  the  timber  itself. 

That  the  Forest  Service  is  doing  both  these  things  well 
is  something  over  which  we  may  all  be  glad,  because  we  are 
Americans.  The  Forest  Service  is  working  for  the  good  of 
all  Americans  by  helping  greatly  to  make  America  a  happy 
and  a  prosperous  country  in  which  to  live. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE    farmers'    farms   AND   THE    NATION'S    FARM 

NOW  we  have  been  in  some  of  the  great  American 
forests,  and  hav-e  seen  the  timber  being  harv^ested; 
and  soon  we  are  going  into  one  of  the  big  mines 
from  which  come  the  coal.  We  certainly  should  see  some- 
thing also  of  the  wiki  game  before  we  stop;  and  it  will  be 
an  interesting  trip  to  follow  a  river  from  its  source  to  its 
mouth,  and  to  see  what  use  men  are  making  of  it. 

But  before  we  take  up  these  things  we  should  see  a  little 
of  the  farms  from  which  comes  the  food  we  eat,  as  well  as 
the  food  which  America  sells  to  feed  hungry  people  in 
other  parts  of  the  world  —  the  corn  and  the  wheat  and  the 
other  field  crops,  and  the  beef  and  mutton  which  are  really 
farm  crops  too. 

We  will  begin  our  journey  in  the  South  and  travel  north 
to  New  England.  Then  we  will  go  westward  through  the 
rich  Mississippi  valley  to  the  Public  Domain.  But  before 
we  start  there  are  a  few  facts  we  should  have  well  in  mind. 

Perhaps  your  father  has  a  home  in  the  country.  Or 
if  not,  you  have  visited  such  homes,  and  you  know  how  sel- 
dom it  is  that  even  a  small  farm  is  all  good  land  under 
cultivation. 

Even  the  little  farm  usually  has  its  patch  of  woodland, 
generally  on  the  roughest,  poorest  soil,  from  which  the 
farmer  cuts  some  firewood  and  perhaps  a  little  post  and 
pole  timber.  The  same  farm  often  has  its  bit  of  swamp 
or  marsh  along  the  river  or  the  brook,  which  is  too  wet  to 

99 


loo  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

plough  until  it  has  been  drained,  and  in  the  meantime  is 
practically  useless.  There  may  be  the  steep  south  slope  of 
a  hillside,  which  will  grow  little  or  nothing  because  it  is  too 
dry  instead  of  too  wet;  and  before  we  get  to  the  productive 
farm  land  we  are  likely  to  cross  a  field  or  two  which  is  lying 
abandoned  because  it  has  been  farmed  to  death. 

So  much  for  the  little  farm.  Now  how  about  the  United 
States,  that  farm  of  three  million  square  miles,  whose  wood 
lots  are  the  Northern  Pine  Belt,  and  the  Southern  Hard- 
woods, and  the  other  great  forest  regions?  Men  have 
mapped  it  and  studied  it;  and  while  they  cannot  tell  you 
about  it  as  accurately  as  you  can  describe  the  little  farm 
which  you  know,  still  they  can  give  you  a  fairly  good  idea 
of  what  it  contains.    This  is  what  they  say: 

Of  the  whole  L^nited  States  a  little  more  than  half  can  be 
farmed  profitably,  and  a  little  less  than  half  is  already  being 
farmed.  About  a  quarter  is  forest.  The  remainder  is  rug- 
ged mountain,  marsh,  and  swamp  which  must  be  drained 
before  it  can  be  farmed,  or  so  dry  that  crops  will  not  grow 
on  the  land  until  it  is  watered  by  irrigation. 

This  is  a  big  farm.  It  is  feeding  nearly  a  hundred  mil- 
lion people  in  this  country,  and  about  twenty  million  people 
in  other  countries.  Four  fifths  of  the  corn  crop  and  over 
half  the  cotton  crop  of  the  world  is  grown  in  America.  Let 
us  go  and  see  what  condition  this  farm  is  in,  and  whether 
we  are  using  it  rightly. 

Cotton  and  Corn. 

The  first  part  of  our  trip  takes  us  back  to  the  "  piney 
woods  "  of  the  South,  where  we  found  the  "  turpentine  or- 
chards "  and  the  steam  log  loader  at  work;  but  on  the  rich 
low  lands  we  see,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  crops  of  cotton 
and  sugar  cane.     For  now  wc  are  not  far  from  the  tropics. 


FARMERS'    AND    THE    NATION'S    FARMS     loi 

and  the  sun  is  so  hot  that  white  men  seldom  work  in  the 
fields;  but  such  work  is  usually  done  by  colored  men.  Some 
of  these  plantation  hands  are  bowed  and  white-haired;  they 
could  tell  us  about  the  slave  days,  now  gone  forever,  when 
the  dark-skinned  men  and  women  were  the  chattels  of  their 
masters. 


Cotton  like  snow  over  the  ground 

Even  here,  where  heat,  abunciant  rain,  and  a  rich  black 
soil  should  mean  steadily  better  crops  year  after  year,  we 
notice  great  differences  in  plantations  which  occupy  the 
same  quality  of  land.  On  some  the  cotton  is  like  snow  over 
the  ground,  while  on  others  it  is  but  a  sprinkle  of  white; 
and  the  difference  in  the  crops  is  as  high  as  a  bale  to  the 
acre,  which  is  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  raw 
cotton.     What  is  the  reason? 


102 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


It  is  the  same  cause  of  which  we  saw  the  results  In  the 
forests,  and  w^hich  we  shall  see  on  the  public  range,  and 
when  we  come  to  the  mines,  the  rivers,  and  the  wild  game 
—  the  lack  of  thrift. 


f *^ 


1  t^   i^^"    \ 


\ 


Spindling,  yellow-green  corn  stalks 

In  whatever  part  of  the  country  the  farm  may  be,  there 
are  two  rules  which  no  good  farmer  can  afford  to  break. 
He  must  plow  and  harrow  thoroughly,  because  without  good 
cultivation  the  soil  does  not  give  up  its  plant  food  freely, 
and  dries  out  very  fast.  He  must  enrich  the  soil,  both  by 
changing  the  crops  so  that  one  crop  will  put  back  part  of 
what  another  has  taken  away,  and  by  manure  and  what  are 


FARMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     103 

called  "commercial   fertilizers,"   such   as  ground   rock  con- 
taining phosphates  and  other  plant  foods. 

As  we  turn  northward,  the  sugar  cane  disappears  and  the 
cotton  dwindles  and  grows  poorer,  until  at  last  it  vanishes. 
We  begin  to  see  wheat  and  oats  and  more  and  more  corn. 


■       ^^%t,; 


The  farmer  counts  more  than  the  land 

We  pass  fields  of  spindling,  yellow-green  corn  stalks 
bearing  not  more  than  one  ear  to  the  stalk,  and  perhaps  half 
of  these  ears  are  nubbins;  while  the  very  next  field  may 
show  what  a  royal  crop  is  corn  when  the  farmer  makes  the 
best  instead  of  the  worst  of  his  land.  In  such  fields  the 
stalks  are  ten  feet  high,  with  blades  three  or  four  feet  long; 


I04  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

and  we  see  two  and  sometimes  three  ears  to  the  stalk,  and 
each  a  full  ten  Inches  long. 

They  are  different  pictures  to  look  at,  and  they  are  just  as 
different  when  it  comes  to  the  profits.  What  does  the 
farmer  who  owns  the  first  field  make?  His  seed  and  labor 
have  cost  him  about  ten  dollars  to  the  acre,  and  the  acre 
yield  is  twenty-five  or  thirty  bushels.  If  his  corn  brings 
fifty  cents  a  bushel,  this  makes  at  most  fifteen  dollars  to  the 
acre,  or  five  dollars  return  on  his  labor.  Now  what  does  the 
farmer  in  the  second  field  make?  It  cost  him  about  fifteen 
dollars  an  acre  for  labor,  seed,  and  fertilizer.  His  crop  is 
sixty  or  eighty  or  even  one  hundred  bushels,  which  means 
a  net  return  of  from  fifteen  to  thirty-five  dollars  to  the  acre, 
or  three  to  seven  times  what  the  other  farmer  made.  The 
farmer  counts  more  than  the  land. 

For  many  years  the  great  LTnited  States  Department  of 
Agriculture  has  been  teaching  the  farmers,  and  particularly 
the  Southern  farmers,  to  grow  better  and  more  profitable 
crops.  It  has  accomplished  much,  and  to  no  one  man  is 
more  credit  due  than  to  the  late  Dr.  S.  A.  Knapp,  who 
thoroughly  understood  not  only  Southern  farming  but  the 
Southern  farmer;  and  knowing  the  one  counts  nearly  as 
much  as  knowing  the  other.  For  farmers  do  not  turn  to 
new  methods  readily,  and  they  are  apt  to  hold  the  knowl- 
edge of  strangers  in  small  esteem.  Have  you  never  heard 
some  old  farmer  say  something  like  this? 

"  Yes,  I  reckon  the  Government  is  spending  a  lot  of 
money  to  teach  us  old  dogs  new  tricks.  But  what  can  those 
men  back  in  Washington  teach  me  about  how  to  grow 
corn?  I  ha\e  farmed  this  place  for  thirty  years;  if  I  don't 
raise  more  corn  it  is  the  fault  of  the  land,  not  my  fault. 
These  new  theories  may  be  all  \ery  well  for  those  who  have 
time  for  them,  but  the  man  who  knows  most  about  raising 
corn  is  the  man  who  has  spent  most  of  his  life  raising  it." 


FARMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     105 

The  next  time  a  farmer  says  something  like  that  to  you, 
tell  him  this  story : 


Boys  the  Best  Farmers. 

Doctor  Knapp  found  out  that  one  of  the  hardest  things 
he  had  to  overcome  in  order  to  get  Southern   farmers  to 


; jw^  ^r •*'^- y  -*.  ■•'  t  - .  's  -. -  ■         .  • 


■  ->  -«•,■  "^  -i  ■^  r.j^- 


Without  good  roads  crops  cannot  be  hauled  to  market 

practise  better  methods  was  just  this  attitude  toward  what 
the  farmers  call  "  scientific  farming."  He  set  quietly  to 
work  and  started  a  movement  for  corn-growing  compe- 
titions between  farmers'  boys.  The  result  was  that  in  most 
cases  the  boys  who  followed  Doctor  Knapp's  instructions 
for  the  care  of  their  crops  beat  their  fathers  at  raising  corn. 
One  boy,  a  South  Carolina  boy  named  Jerry  Moore,  raised 
two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  bushels  of  corn  on  an  acre  of 


io6 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


land.  Another  South  Carolina  boy  raised  one  hundred  and 
seventy-seven  bushels,  at  a  cost  of  only  twenty-three  cents 
a  bushel. 

Through  the  work  of  Doctor  Knapp,  who  has  now  gone 
to  his  rest  after  a  life  full  of  usefulness,  and  through  the 


Good  roads  no  less  than  good  crops  are  needed  to  make  prosperity 

work  generally  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  the 
farmers  in  the  South  and  the  farmers  elsewhere  are  gradu- 
ally coming  to  learn  that  farming  after  all  is  a  science:  and 
that  to  get  the  most  out  of  the  land  and  still  to  improve  it 
is  a  task  which  calls  for  close  study  and  careful  records  of 
results,  for  investigations  of  seed  and  soil,  and  for  all  the 
other  apparently  useless  things  that  "  those  fellows  back  in 
Washington"   are  doing.      Farm  journals  like   "Wallace's 


FARMERS'    AND    THE    NATION'S    FARMS     107 

Farmer,"  and  the  work  of  the  State  Agricultural  Experl' 
ment  Stations,  are  giving  great  support  to  the  campaign  of 
education  in  farming  carried  on  by  the  Government,  and 
their  combined  efforts  are  beginning  to  bear  fruit. 


;*•*  *,  *-  /• 


Even  the  boys  and  girls  suffer  from  bad  roads 


North  and  JFest. 

So  we  travel  further  northward,  through  the  Carolinas,  in 
which  a  new  era  of  development  is  dawning;  for  the  recent 
growth  of  the  South  in  agriculture  and  in  manufacture  has 
astonished  the  world.  But  signs  are  still  frequent  of  that 
lack  of  thrift  whose  handmarks  are  fields  worked  to  death 
and  abandoned,  crops  stunted  and  starving  for  lack  of 
proper  cultivation  and  nourishment,  and  roads  gullied  and 


io8 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


deep  in  mud.  For  good  roads  no  less  than  good  crops  are 
necessary  to  the  prosperity  of  the  farmer.  Without  them 
crops  cannot  be  hauled  to  the  railroad  or  to  market,  farm 
values  do  not  greatly  increase,  and  even  the  children  suffer, 
for  they  cannot  walk  dry-shod  and  easily  to  school. 


Where  children  walk  dry-shod  and  easily  to  school 

Now  we  turn  westward,  and  are  soon  in  the  great  Mis- 
sissippi \"alley,  where  most  of  our  corn  crop  is  grown.  As 
we  look  through  the  car  windows  we  see  farm  following 
farm,  mile  after  mile  and  hour  after  hour.  The  warm  wind 
rustles  the  great  forest  of  corn  on  either  side,  with  the  loose 
black  soil  beneath  it;  and  now  and  then  the  corn  gives  way 
to  small  grain  and  fragrant  ficKls  of  timothy  and  clover. 
For  now  wc  arc  in  one  of  the  richest  farming  regions  of  the 


o 

r-< 


SI 


o 


no 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


world.  The  crops  tell  us  so;  as  do  the  comfortable  farm 
houses,  the  huge  barns,  and  the  trolley  lines  which  often 
parallel  the  railroad  track. 

But  if  we  were  to  stop  and  ask  the  owner  of  one  of  those 
rich  farms  whether  his  crop  yield  per  acre  and  that  of  his 
neighbors  was  increasing,  he  would  answer  us  something  like 
this: 


How  some  pioneer  farmers  in  the  Southwest  bring  in  the  hay 

"  Well,  that  is  a  hard  question.  Some  of  us  grow  less 
per  acre,  and  a  few  of  us  more  than  we  used  to  do.  I  reckon 
it  averages  about  the  same  as  it  did  thirty  years  ago.  Before 
then  the  farmers  grew  bigger  crops  for  they  worked  the  rich 
soil  which  had  never  known  the  plough  before.  They  took 
the  cream  and  left  us  the  skim  milk;  and  it  is  skim  milk  still 
for  those  who  cling  to  the  old  methods,  which  do  not  put 
back  any  of  the  cream." 

If  we  travel  on  to  Kansas,  the  Dakotas,  or  to  distant 
California  and  Oregon,  we  will  see  what  has  well  been  called 


FARMERS'    AND    THE    NATION'S    FARMS     iii 

"bonanza"  farming;  ranches  sown  in  wheat  to  the  hori- 
zon, whose  size  is  measured  by  the  thousands  of  acres  in- 
stead of  the  hundreds  we  know  in  the  East;  ranches  on 
which  the  plowing  and  harvesting  are  done  largely  by  steam 


Where  farming  is  a  struggle  for  existence 


power,  and  where  the  use  of  fertilizers  is  as  yet  unknown; 
ranches  whose  owners  mine  the  virgin  prairie  soil,  regardless 
of  the  future. 

Although  our  trip  shows  us  many  conditions,  from  the 
semi-tropic  cotton  fields  of  the  Gulf  States  to  the  orchards 
of  New  England  and  the  seas  of  wheat  in  the  Northwest, 


I  12 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


all  our  farms,  as  Henry  Wallace  so  well  puts  it,  fall  into 
these  three  classes:  the  pioneer  farm,  with  its  few  rough 
tilled  acres,  whose  owner  farms  to  exist  and  seldom  even 
thinks  of  improving  the  soil;  and  the  "bonanza"  farm, 
where  neither  capital  nor  initiative   is   lacking,   and  where 


The  handiwork  of  the  man  who  is  a  good  citizen  and  a  good  farmer 

crop  production  goes  forward  on  a  huge  scale  without  re- 
gard for  the  soil  or  for  those  who  must  wring  a  livelihood 
from  it  later.  But  here  and  there —  and  that  is  the  hopeful 
side  of  it  —  we  see  the  handiwork  of  the  man  who  is  a  good 
citizen  because  he  is  a  good  farmer;  the  man  who  holds  his 
land  in  trust  for  the  people,  like  the  lumberman  who  prac- 
tises forestry;  v/ho  learns  from  the  mistakes  of  other  men 
and  takes  advantage  (if  the  stored  knowledge  at  the  dis- 
posal of  all,  to  steadily  increase  the  product  of  his   farm. 


FARMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     113 

He  is  the  farmer  of  the  future;  upon  him  depends  in  a 
very  real  sense  the  welfare  and  the  very  existence  of  this 
nation,  which  already  has  nearly  one  hundreci  million 
mouths  to  feed,  but  whose  land  area  must  always  remain 
the  same. 

We  must  Grow  what  Food  IV e  Need. 

We  have  already  agreed  that  figures  are  sometimes  tire- 
some things.  But  the  figures  which  deal  with  crop  produc- 
tion teach  this  great  lesson: 

The  farms  of  America  feed  all  Americans  and  employ 
one  third  of  them. 

By  the  year  1950,  or  within  less  than  fifty  years,  America 
probably  will  have  two  hundred  million  people  living  within 
it.  By  the  year  2000,  or  within  less  than  ninety  years, 
America  will  have  not  less  than  three  hundred  million 
mouths  to  feed. 

To  produce  food  for  three  hundred  million  people  at  our 
present  crop  production  per  acre  would  take  two  thirds  of 
the  total  area  of  the  United  States.  That  means  that  we 
would  have  to  farm  the  deserts  and  the  mountain  tops,  as 
well  as  the  fertile  lands.  This  we  cannot  do.  The  only 
thing  left  to  do  is  to  grow  more  food  per  acre. 

How  much  more  food  can  we  grow?  That  is  something 
which  no  one  knows  exactly,  because  the  range  of  crop  pro- 
duction per  acre  is  steadily  increasing  through  the  discovery 
of  better  farming  methods;  but  we  do  know  that  while  we 
produce  an  average  of  about  fourteen  bushels  of  wheat  per 
acre,  Germany  produces  twice  as  much,  and  England  still 
more.  We  produce  thirty  bushels  of  oats  to  the  acre; 
Germany  produces  nearly  fifty  and  England  about  forty- 
five;  and  we  are  farming  fresh  soil,  while  the  lancls  on 
which  Germany  and  England  grow  crops  so  much  greater 
than  our  own  have  been  farmed  for  many  centuries. 


114 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


It  is  clear  that  if  this  nation  is  to  go  on  growing  great  it 
must  improve  its  farms  just  as  it  must  iniprove  its  forests. 
So  soon  as  we  begin  to  depend  upon  other  countries  for  an 
important  part  of  our  food  supply,  just  so  soon  will  our 
greatness  vanish.  Again  it  is  a  question  of  living  within  our 
means. 


Remember  Europe,  with  its  beautiful  villages 

Think  of  England  with  her  population  nearly  one  half 
our  own,  and  of  her  feverish  efforts  to  bring  food  from 
other  countries  to  feed  those  empty  mouths.  Her  iron 
freighters  furrow  the  high  seas,  loaded  to  the  limit  of 
safety  with  the  wheat  which  means  the  bread  which  men 
must  have  to  live.  But  the  cry  is  always  for  more;  and  this 
growing  hunger  for  food  which  England  must  buy  else- 
where or  starve,  puts  her  in  a  real  sense  at  the  mercy  of  the 
other  nations. 

A  man  or  a  boy  who  owns  or  works  a  farm  and  who 
makes  no  effort  to  maintain  and  improve  its  yield  can  ne\er 


FARMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     115 

be  a  useful  citizen,  a  wise  father,  nor  a  helpful  son.  Re- 
member Europe,  with  its  smiling  valleys  carpeted  with 
rich  crops,  and  beautiful  villages  filled  with  thrifty  people, 
well  content  to  make  a  fair  living  from  the  soil  and  to  keep 
it  in  good  tilth.  They  tried  mining  the  soil  there  just  as  we 
are  trying  it,  and  they  found  that  it  might  enrich  one  man 


The  soil  was  meant  for  many  men  to  live  on  and  improve 

or  one  generation,  but  that  it  brought  suffering  to  the  next. 
Europe  came  to  see,  as  we  are  coming  to  see,  that  the 
soil  was  meant  for  many  men  to  live  on  and  improve,  and 
to  rear  healthy  families  upon;  but  that  the  farm  was  not 
meant,  any  more  than  the  forest  was  meant,  to  make  a  few 
men  rich  at  the  cost  of  making  the  nation  poor. 


TJie  Public  Domain. 

That  part  of  the  United  States  which  is  still  owned  by 
the  Government  is  nearly  all  in  the  West,  and  is  called  the 
Public  Domain.     This  is  land  which  came  into  the  possession 


ii6  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

of  the  nation  in  the  beginning  and  has  not  yet  passed  into 
private  hands,  by  being  taken  up  for  farms,  or  mines,  or 
for  the  timber. 

Part  oi  this  public  domain,  like  the  National  Forests  and 
the  Military  Reservations,  has  been  set  aside  for  definite 
purposes  by  the  Government;  but  there  are  still  three  hun- 
dred million  acres,  or  about  one  sixth  of  this  country,  which 
is  called  the  "  vacant  "  or  "  unappropriated  "  Public  Domain. 
Nearly  all  of  it  is  in  what  are  called  the  arid  and  semi-arid 
states,  which  means  practically  every  state  in  the  far  West. 
The  great  bulk  of  it  is  in  Idaho,  Wyoming,  Montana,  Ne- 
vada, Utah,  Colorado,  Oregon,  Arizona,  and  New  Mexico. 

Much  more  of  this  land  would  long  ago  have  been  settled 
upon  and  farmed  were  it  not  so  dry  that  it  will  raise  crops 
only  under  irrigation. 

Part  of  the  public  domain,  particularly  in  Nevada,  Ari- 
zona, and  New  Mexico,  is  desert  —  great  arid  stretches  of 
soil  as  dry  as  powder,  which  will  grow  only  scattered  clumps 
of  sagebrush  and  other  dry  land  plants,  and  where  the 
blazing  sun  pours  down  from  a  cloudless  sky,  and  little  or 
no  rain  falls.  But  as  the  ground  rises  and  the  forest-clad 
mountains  grow  nearer,  the  rainfall  Increases,  so  that  within 
this  great  domain  are  found  many  degrees  of  dryness,  from 
the  furnace-like  heat  and  absolute  drought  of  Death  Valley, 
two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  below  sea  level,  to  the  rolling 
country  of  Eastern  Oregon,  in  which  wheat  is  raised  with 
fair  success  by  taking  advantage  of  the  snowfall  as  well  as 
of  the  scanty  rainfall. 

In  spite  of  its  general  unfitness  for  the  plow,  most  of  the 
public  domain  grows  grass  and  other  natural  forage  crops 
abundantly,  so  that  its  chief  use  has  come  to  be  as  a  range 
for  sheep,  cattle,  and  horses. 

Suppose  we  took  a  train  at  Chicago,  or  St.  Louis,  or  Kan- 
sas City,  or  New  Orleans,  and  traveled  westward.      If  we 


FARiMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     117 

followed  a  northern  route,  we  should  see  different  scenes 
and  crops  from  what  we  should  see  by  a  southern  one,  al- 
though the  great  classes  of  country  through  which  we  passed 
vvould  be  about  the  same.  So  let  us  take  a  middle  route, 
which  will  show  us  characteristic  conditions,  unchanged  by 
either  great  heat  or  cold. 


Like  green  garlands  on  a  dull  carpet 

We  pass  westward  through  the  fertile  farming  states  on 
both  sides  of  the  Mississippi  valley;  and  as  we  enter  the 
western  part  of  Nebraska,  or  of  Kansas,  the  farms  grow 
larger  and  less  fruitful.  There  are  fewer  houses,  and  we 
notice  that  the  water  tanks  are  farther  and  farther  apart. 
The  trees  become  fewer  and  fewer,  until  they  grow  only 
along  the  water  courses;  and  often  we  can  see  straight  to 
the  sky-line  all  around  us,  with  not  even  a  bush  to  break  the 
view. 

The   air  is  no  longer  laden  with   the   scent  of  growing 


FARMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     119 

things,  and  we  begin  to  taste  the  keen  dry  air  of  the  open 
range,  the  best  tonic  man  has  ever  found.  The  train  seems 
to  be  growing  smaller,  and  from  the  window  we  see  the 
strange  pictures  this  vast  expanse  of  treeless,  manless, 
seemingly  homeless  country  has  to  show  as  we  enter  through 


Copyright,  iQio.  by  Erwin  E.  Smith 

More  and  more  cattle 

its  oceans  of  solitude.  Jack-rabbits,  frightened  by  the 
train,  race  with  ungainly  but  astonishing  speed  from  the 
shelter  of  one  clump  of  sagebrush  to  another;  and  if  our 
eyes  are  keen  we  may  catch  a  glimpse,  especially  toward 
dusk  or  early  in  the  morning,  of  a  loping  coyote  vanishing 
up  some  draw  or  canyon. 

The  mornings  are  cool  and  crisp,  but  in  the  middle  of  the 
day  the  heat  climbs  until  the  thermometer  in  the  train  regis- 


I20 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


ters  around  one  hundred  degrees.  It  is  like  no  heat  we  have 
ever  felt  before;  it  seems  to  have  a  tonic  quality  of  its  own, 
and  when  the  chance  comes  at  the  little  stations,  we  stretch 
ourselves  and  enjoy  exercise  in  a  temperature  which  at  home 
would  send  us  seeking  the  shade.  These  stations  are  like 
oases  in  the  desert,  with  their  bright  flowers  and  their  patch 


Copyright,  iQio,  by  Eraiin  E.  Smith 

The  cattle  graze  in  open  order 

of  emerald  green  grass  in  front.  Occasionally  we  see  a 
string  of  homes  and  ranches  up  the  valleys,  like  green  gar- 
lands laid  on  a  dull  carpet.  What  a  relief  it  is  to  turn 
from  the  reds  and  browns  and  grays  of  the  open  range  to 
the  rich  colors  of  these  irrigated  farms!  Gridironing  them, 
like  white  lines  on  a  football  field,  or  leading  from  the  main 
ditch  like  twigs  from  a  branch,  we  see  the  shallow  sluices 
through  which  trickles  the  magic  water  whose  touch  makes 
this  desert  blossom  with  homes. 

Between  the  vallevs,  which  arc  many  miles  apart,  we  see 
nothing  but  the  billowing  open  range,  sometimes  Hat  as  the 


FARMERS'    AND    THE    NATION'S    FARMS     121 

sea,  sometimes  choppy  like  rough  water;  sometimes  rising 
and  falling  in  great  waves  of  land  to  the  distant  mountains; 
but  always  impressive  as  nothing  else  is  impressive  except 
the  sea,  and  of  a  loneliness  which  cannot  be  told  in  words. 


A  sheepherder's  burros.     One  is  eating  a  newspaper! 


We  see  more  and  more  cattle  and  sheep.  The  sheep  are 
generally  in  the  higher  country,  the  cattle  lower  down.  We 
have  never  seen  such  great  flocks  of  sheep  or  herds  of  cattle 
before.  Bands  of  two  thousand  sheep  are  common.  The 
number  of  the  sheep  is  always  easier  to  estimate  for  they  are 
close  together,  sometimes  so  close  that  they  look  like  a  huge 
dirty  white  blanket  stretched  over  the  range.  The  cattle 
graze   in   open   order,    scattered    in   twos   and  threes;     and 


122 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


while  a  band  of  a  thousand  sheep  may  not  cover  more  than 
a  few  acres,  a  herd  of  cattle  of  the  same  number  usually 
spreads  over  several  square  miles. 

Tlic  Shecpherders  and  the  Cowboys. 

We  would  greatly  like  to  stop  and  talk  to  those  lonely 
sheepherders,  one  of  whom  we  always  see  near  his  band  of 


Copyright,  1910,  by  Erwin  E.  Smith 

Their  lithe  figures  a  straight  line  from  heel  to  head 

sheep.  Most  of  them  are  swarthy  men,  like  Spaniards;  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  many  of  them  are  Spaniards  by  origin,  men 
whose  forefathers  came  over  from  the  sheep  country  in  the 
mountains  of  Spain  or  Portugal,  and  who  are  following 
here,  far  from  their  own  land,  the  trade  which  is  theirs  by 
inheritance.  Each  has  his  dog  and  a  horse,  or  more  often 
a  "  burro,"  as  they  call  a  donkey  in  the  West,  to  carry  his 
scanty  outfit.  Such  men  are  often  alone  with  the  sheep  for 
weeks  at  a  time.  What  stories  they  could  tell  if  they  had 
the  gift  of  speech,  ot  the  wonders  of  the  wide  places,  of  the 
glories  of  sunrise  and  sunset  and  storm  on  the  open  range, 
and  of  the  wild  animals  from  which  they  protect  their 
charges. 


FARMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     123 

The  cowboys  would  be  worth  talking  to  as  well,  and 
probably  easier  to  talk  to  than  the  lonely  sheepherders,  for 
they  often  wave  a  friendly  signal  at  the  train  as  it  passes, 
which  the  sheepherders  seldom  do.     Lean,  tanned,  effective- 


*<-tZ 


J'inilii  iiiim  llair'ut  Chabmrs  Adams 


There  is  much  that  is  stirring  about  the  life  of  mounted  men. 

A  cowboy  of  Argentina 


looking  citizens  they  are,  with  their  lithe  figures  in  the  deep 
saddles,  a  straight  line  from  heel  to  head.  The  cowboys 
could  tell  us  interesting  stories  too  —  stories  of  stampedes, 
as  hard  to  stop  as  they  are  easy  to  start;  stories  of  all-day 
fights  between  great  range  bulls;    stories  of  roping,  brand- 


124 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


Ing,  and  bronco  "  busting,"  and  of  the  other  strenuous  duties, 
of  their  rough  riding  Hves. 

They  could  tell  us  how  in  the  old  days  the  life  of  the  cow- 
boy was  so  full  of  incident  and  of  adventure  that  no  man 
who  wrote  about  it  needed  to  tell  more  than  the  plain  truth 


Copyiiglil,  iQii,  by  Lni'in  E.  Smilli 

A  bucking  mustang 

to  interest  his  hearers;  of  the  days  when  mounted  men 
foriTicd  for  weeks  and  even  for  months  a  li\-ing  fence 
around  the  great  herds  of  half-wild  cattle,  herding  them, 
quieting  them,  singing  to  them  when  a  stampede  threatened, 
or  risking  life  in  a  wild  ride  to  check  them  when  they  broke; 
drixing  them  from  one  range  to  another,  caring  for  them 
no  less  faithfully  than  the  sheepherder  for  his  sheep;  and 
bringing  them  back  ready  for  the  stock  train  anil  the  slaugh- 
ter house  in  the  fall. 


FARMERS'   AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     125 

They  could  tell  us  how  the  life  of  the  range  gradually 
changed  as  settlement  thickened,  how  the  competition  for 
the  forage  increased,  and  how  the  wire  fences,  which  now 
enclose  vast  areas  anci  are  continually  enclosing  more,  have 
greatly  changed  the  life  of  the  cowboy. 


Copyright,  igio.  by  Erwin  E.  Umith 

In  the  sun-baked  corral 

But  in  spite  of  the  wire  fences,  there  is  still  much  that  is 
stirring  and  fine  about  the  life  of  these  men,  as  there  is  about 
the  life  of  any  other  mounted  men  or  men  afoot,  whose 
work  carries  them  into  the  open  and  away  from  the  beaten 
tracks.  There  is  bronco  "  busting"  in  the  corrals,  the  west- 
ern name  for  a  little  oval  space  about  one  hundred  feet 
across,  enclosed  in  a  high  board  or  pole  fence,  where  men 
struggle    to   conquer   bucking,    biting,    screaming   mustangs, 


126 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


some  of  them  five  years  old  before  they  feel  the  touch  of 
man,  and  which  fight  like  demons  by  every  trick  known  to 
savage  horseflesh,  in  the  billowing  dust  of  the  sun-baked 
corral. 

Thev  could  tell  us  stories  of  the  daily  round  of  the  cow- 


^ 


Copyright,  icjio,  by  Eruin  LL.  6mith 

Roping  and  throwing  a  calf  for  branding 

boy's  life;  cutting  out  and  branding  the  calves,  and  roping 
picked  cattle  from  a  herd;  and  stories  of  the  cattle,  to  whom 
a  man  on  foot  is  so  unfamiliar  a  sight  that  they  are  likely 
to  close  in  around  him  from  sheer  curiosity. 

The  story  is  told  that  when  the  great  Spaniard  Cortez 
conquered  the  Aztecs,  which  were  and  are  still  the  Indians 
of  Mexico,  —  although  Cortez's  conquest  of  Mexico  was 
several  hundred  years  ago,  —  he  was  greatly  aided  by  the 


! 


FARMERS'   AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     127 

superstitious  awe  with  which  the  Indians  regarded  horse- 
men. They  had  never  seen  horses,  some  of  which  Cortez 
had  brought  with  him  and  his  men  in  their  ships.  The 
Indians  believed  that  the  man  and  the  horse  was  all  one 
strange  animal,  which  they  greatly  feared.     Cortez  and  his 


Branding  a  calf 


Copyrigkl,  igio,  by  Erwin  E.  Smith 


followers  corrected  this  mistake  as  little  as  possible,  and  it 
is  said  they  even  slept  and  ate  upon  horseback  for  days  at  a 
time.  The  wild  range  cattle  are  a  good  deal  like  the  Aztecs; 
they  have  much  respect  for  a  mounted  man,  but  none  for  a 
man  on  foot. 

Stock  Followed  Buffalo. 

The  most  important  thing  we  might  learn  from  the  cow- 
boys would  be  the  story  of  the  use  and  abuse  by  the  stock- 


128 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


men  of  this  great  Public  Domain,  which  on  an  enormous  scale 
is  practically  the  same  thing  as  the  common  outside  the  vil- 
lage, on  which  the  villagers  together  pasture  their  milk 
cows.      I'he  only  difference  is  that  the  Public  Domain  is  as 


Copyrip,lit.  11)11,  by  Eruin  E.  itiiiillt 

Roping  picked  cattle  from  a  herd 

big  as  Germany  and  France  together,  and  is  owned  by  the 
nation  instead  of  the  village. 

.Much  less  than  a  hundred  years  ago  these  great  plains 
and  many  of  the  grass-covered  mountains  knew  only  the 
buffalo,  which   roamed  in  herds  so  vast  that  they  literally 


I 


FARMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     129 

covered  the  ground  for  miles.  The  dainty,  beautifully- 
marked  antelope,  one  of  the  fleetest  four-legged  creatures 
in  the  world,  were  plentiful,  while  nearer  the  forest  there 
were  abundant  elk  and  black-tail  deer. 

As  the  ticie  of  settlement  swept  westward,  the  big  game 
was  slaughtered;  the  buffalo  were  wiped  out,  and  the  ante- 
lope became  so  rare  that  strenuous  efforts  are  now  needed 
to  keep  it  in  existence. 

Where  there  was  water  for  irrigation,  homes  and  farms 
sprang  up;  but  it  did  not  take  men  long  to  find  that  the 
chief  value  of  these  great  stretches  of  semi-arid  lands  was 
as  a  natural  range  for  sheep  and  cattle.  They  soon  began 
to  raise  more  stock  than  they  needed  for  their  own  use  and 
to  sell  It  to  other  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  even 
abroad.  This  went  on,  until  now  America  is  the  greatest 
producer  of  beef  and  mutton  in  the  world.  The  famous 
roast  beef  of  England  is  nearly  all  American  beef.  The 
city  of  New  York  alone  uses  over  two  thousand  beef  cattle 
a  day.  And  the  call  is  always  for  more,  for  Americans  are 
a  meat-eating  race,  and  we  live  in  a  meat-eating  age. 

The  stock  industry  grew  until  the  sheep  and  cattle  on  the 
western  range  far  outnumbered  the  buffalo  which  preceded 
them.  The  numbers  are  now  so  great  that  they  almost  sur- 
pass belief.  At  present  forty  million  sheep  and  thirty  mil- 
lion cattle  graze  on  the  open  range  each  year. 

Tlie  Range  is  Being  JVasted. 

As  the  cowboy  told  us  back  In  the  National  Forest: 
"  What  nobody  is  responsible  for  nobody  will  take  care  of." 
Men  grew  rich  quickly  from  the  stock  business,  but  left  the 
ranges  to  look  out  for  themselves.  About  twenty  years  ago 
the  pinch  came.  The  stockmen  began  to  see  that  the  ranges 
were  getting  to  be  overcrowded,  and  that  as  a  result  the  grass 


I30  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

crop  was  steadily  poorer  year  by  year.  Had  they  owned 
the  range  themselves,  or  had  the  Government  done  its  duty 
by  regulating  its  use,  the  herds  would  have  been  reduced 
until  the  range  carried  only  as  much  stock,  as  it  could  feed 
without  overgrazing.  What  that  is  can  be  estimated  very 
closely;  It  varies,  depending  upon  the  quality  of  the  range, 
between  thirty  and  sixty  acres  to  each  head  of  cattle,  and 
from  one  and  a  half  to  six  acres  to  each  sheep. 

But  a  man's  first  impulse  when  there  is  not  enough  of  any- 
thing to  go  round  is,  sometimes,  not  to  take  less  himself, 
but  to  prevent  another  from  taking  any.  iVlen  seldom 
owned  both  sheep  and  cattle,  but  generally  one  or  the  other. 
Where  sheep  have  grazed  cattle  do  not  do  well,  because 
sheep  eat  the  forage  so  close  that  there  is  little  left  for  the 
cattle  after  sheep  have  passed  over  the  land.  Sheep  travel 
greater  distances  and  graze  over  wider  stretches  than  cattle, 
and  they  can  winter  on  a  range  where  cattle  would  starve. 
The  result  is  that  the  cattlemen,  rather  than  the  sheepmen, 
have  been  the  home  builders,  since  with  the  cattle  business 
there  must  be  a  home  and  a  farm  in  order  to  produce  feed 
for  the  winter;  while  the  sheep  winter  on  the  lower  ranges, 
on  which  thev  can  Vwe  even  if  thev  have  to  nibble  the  dead 
grass  out  from  under  the  snow.  So  while  both  Industries 
arc  legitimate  industries,  the  cattle  business  is  the  one  which 
by  its  very  nature  has  done  most  to  build  up  the  range  coun- 
try and  to  bring  homes  within  It. 

The  competition  between  the  sheepmen  and  the  cattle- 
men, ami  sonietlmes  even  between  representatives  of  the 
same  industry,  for  the  possession  of  the  range  grew  more 
and  more  bitter,  and  soon  there  came  range  wars  and  blood- 
shed. Stockmen  competing  for  the  same  range  would  some- 
times tell  each  other  that  they  would  consider  such  and  such 
a  r'wer  or  mountam  crest  as  a  dead  line,  which  the  other 
man's  stock  must  not  cross.     This  dead  line  was  often  held 


FARiMERS'    AND   THE    NATION'S    FARMS     131 

with  Winchesters,  and  human  lives  were  sacrificed  and  sheep 
and  cattle  were  slaughtered  wickedly  and  uselessly. 

The  range  wars  are  a  dark  page  in  American  history,  and 
the  page  will  not  be  finally  turned  until  the  Government 
handles  grazing  on  the  Public  Domain  as  it  is  handled  within 
the  National  Forests. 


Heavy  with  fruit 

Men  like  James  R.  Garfield  anci  Gifford  Pinchot,  who 
have  the  public  interest  first  at  heart,  aided  by  far-sighted 
stockmen  like  Murdo  McKenzie  and  Dwight  B.  Heard, 
ha\e  worked  out  a  practical  plan  which  requires  only  action 
by  Congress  to  bring  about  the  use  of  the  whole  public  range 
in  the  interest  of  the  stockmen,  as  well  as  of  the  American 
people.  Under  this  plan  the  great  ranges  will  be  divided 
into  districts;  the  districts  in  which  sheep  will  do  best  and 
those  which  are  suited  for  cattle  will  be  designated,  and 
trained  men  will  determine  how  much  stock  should  graze 


32 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


in  each,  so  that  the  PubHc  Domain,  hke  the  ranges  in  the 
National  Forests,  will  steadily  improve. 

Probably  not  long  after  this  book  is  written  some  such 
regulation  will  be  put  into  effect,  because  the  present  condi- 
tion is  not  only  wasteful,  but  intolerable  to  most  of  the  West- 
ern stockmen. 


We  see  the  sluices  from  which  the  land  is  flooded 


The  fFork  of  the  Reclamation  Service. 

Now  we  cross  a  green  \'alley  which  lies  between  dust- 
colored  desert  hills.  We  notice  that  the  valley  is  dotted 
with  homes  which  must  be  prosperous,  for  the  barns  are 
bigger  than  the  houses  themseh'cs,  and  up  and  down  this 
beautiful  green  ribbon  of  a  \'allev  are  rich  fields  of  alfalfa 
and  small  grain,  and  oi-chards  hea\"v  with  fruit.  We  ha\'e 
never  seen  such  farms  before  —  they  are  no  more  like  most 
of  the  farms  in  the  East  than  the  tall,   rich   forests  of  the 


134  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

Cascades  are  like  the  sparse  wood  lots  of  New  England, 
For  this  desert  soil  needs  only  moisture  to  bear  crops  more 
abundantly  than  any  other  land  in  the  United  States,  except 
perhaps  that  of  the  rich  Yazoo  Delta  of  the  Mississippi. 

If  we  follow  up  this  beautiful  valley  we  will  see  great 
ditches  running  down  it,  from  which  lead  off  smaller  ditches, 
and  finally  the  sluices  from  which  the  land  is  flooded  or  in 
which  the  water  is  allowed  to  stand  and  soak  into  the  soil. 

Further  up  the  valley  we  come  to  a  great  reservoir  made 
by  damming  up  a  mountain  stream.  The  huge  dam  is  built 
as  the  old  Romans  used  to  build,  for  all  time.  What  a 
task  it  was  to  chain  the  river  by  this  great  structure  of 
cement  and  stone,  far  awav  from  the  towns,  with  all  the 
difficulties  of  bringing  in  labor  and  material  and  supplies! 
Certainly  those  settlers  who  live  in  the  valley  below,  pros- 
perous as  they  seem  to  be,  could  not  do  such  work,  which 
must  have  cost  a  million  dollars  or  more  in  money  and  sev- 
eral years'  time  in  building. 

No,  this  is  Government  work;  and  if  we  could  go  about 
the  West  together  we  would  find  many  such  great  dams, 
some  of  them  completed  like  this  one,  others  now  being 
built,  and  still  others  which  are  planned  but  scarcely  yet 
begun.  I  his  is  the  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service  whose 
task  is  just  what  its  name  implies  —  the  reclaiming  of  the 
desert  soil  by  bringing  water  upon  it,  and  so  making 
orchards  and  fruitful  fields  and  happv  homes  where  deso- 
late stretches  of  sagebrush  used  to  be,  and  where  even  the 
jack-rabbit  and  the  coyote  had  a  hard  time  to  get  a  living. 
1  he  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service,  like  that  of  the 
Forest  Service,  is  something  about  which  we  all  should 
know. 

About  ten  years  ago  a  law  was  passed  which  provided 
that  the  money  received  bv  the  Government,  from  the  sale 
of  land  for  homes  and  other  uses  within  the  Public  Domain, 


f.A 


^^m^ 


We  would  find  many  such  great  dams,  some  completed,  others 

now  being  built 


136  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

should  be  used  to  build  these  great  irrigation  works;  and 
that  the  land  thus  irrigated  should  be  sold  at  a  fair  rate 
to  settlers  and  paid  for  by  them  little  by  little,  as  they  es- 
tablished themselves,  and  their  farms  became  productive. 
To  make  it  sure  that  no  one  man  or  no  group  of  men  could 
monopolize  these  irrigated  lands,  the  law  provided  that  only 
enough  should  be  bought  by  one  man  to  make  a  good 
home  upon  which  one  family  might  live  comfortably. 

The  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service,  like  the  work  of 
the  Forest  Service,  has  its  difficulties,  for  men  are  selfish 
when  it  comes  to  land  as  they  are  when  it  comes  to  timber; 
possibly  even  more  selfish,  for  the  greatest  hunger  that  man 
knows,  after  the  hunger  for  food  itself,  is  land  hunger. 
So  the  Reclamation  Service  has  its  troubles  with  the  in- 
terests which  would  like  to  build  these  irrigation  works 
and  sell  the  land  thus  irrigated  at  an  excessive  price,  or 
hold  it  all  themselves;  but  like  the  Forest  Service,  the 
Reclamation  Service  Is  understood  and  esteemed  by  the 
American  people,  and  under  the  leadership  of  its  dev^oted 
and  efficient  Director,  Frederick  Haynes  Newell,  it  is  doing 
work  of  incalculable  value  to  the  West  and  to  the  whole 
nation. 

The  story  of  the  Reclamation  Service  and  its  engineers 
and  of  what  they  have  accomplished  in  the  face  of  difficul- 
ties which  sometimes  seemed  greater  than  men  could  o\"cr- 
come,  is  another  of  the  things  we  may  all  be  proud  of  as 
Americans.  Its  engineers  have  floated  in  frail  boats  down 
unknown  rapids,  tra\'ellng  for  days  through  canyons  a  mile 
deep  where  men  had  never  gone  before,  in  order  to  find  the 
place  where  a  dam  might  best  be  built.  They  have  tunnelled 
through  a  great  mountain  in  order  to  carry  a  stream  away 
from  its  natural  bed  and  lead  it  to  where  it  could  irrigate 
more  land,  and  thus  make  a  larger  number  of  homes.  They 
ha\'c   borne    and    are    bearing    hea\"v    responsibilities    stead- 


FARMERS'    AND    THE    NATION'S    FARMS     137 

fastly  and  most  efficiently,  and  their  claim  on  our  admira- 
tion and  our  support  is  \'ery  great. 

When  the  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service  is  done,  and 
it  will  take  a  hundred  years  to  finish  it,  it  will  mean  that 
enough  land  will  be  irrigated  to  grow  food  for  two  million 
families.     That  means,   in  turn,  that  two  million  families, 


;««M»^-. 


They  have  tunnelled  through  a  great  mountain 


instead  of  crowding  still  more  the  thickly  settled  regions  of 
the  East,  may  then  live  upon  lands  which  can  now  support 
only  a  handful.  But  the  success  of  this  great  work  hangs 
absolutely  upon  the  permanent  protection  of  the  forests  at 
the  headwaters  of  the  streams  across  which  the  Reclamation 
Service  is  building  its  dams.  Were  It  not  for  the  forests 
which  regulate  the  flow  of  these  streams  and  keep  their 
waters  clear,  there  would  be  floods  which  the  dams  could 
not  hold,  followed  by  low  water,  and  the  dams  themselves 
would  fill  up  with  silt. 


138  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

Three  Great  Problems. 

These  are  the  three  great  problems  of  the  Public  Do- 
main; the  problem  of  using  wisely  the  forests  within  it^ 
which  has  been  solved  by  creating  the  National  Forests  and 
bv  handling  them  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  people;  the 
problem  of  irrigation,  which  has  been  solved  by  building 
Government  dams  honestly  and  efficiently,  and  by  selling 
the  land  in  small  lots  to  real  settlers;  and  the  problem  of 
the  public  range,  which  is  as  yet  unsolved,  but  with  a  so- 
lution ready  which  will  be  put  into  effect  just  as  soon  as 
Congress  can  be  brought  to  feel  the  urgent  need.  There 
are  other  problems  which  must  be  settled  before  the  Public 
Domain  is  wholly  safe  from  greed  and  held  wisely  in 
trust  throughout  for  the  nation  to  which  it  belongs.  Later 
on,  especially  if  you  live  in  the  West,  you  will  come  face  to 
face  with  these  problems;  but  we  cannot  go  into  them  now 
because  there  is  so  much  else  for  us  to  see  and  learn  about 
the  land  we  live  in. 

So  we  will  leave  the  great  Public  Domain,  which  has 
within  it — in  its  vastness,  in  its  brave  traditions  of  early 
struggles  with  Indians,  hunger,  and  thirst,  and  in  the  call 
it  still  makes  upon  all  men  who  succeed  within  it  for  courage 
and  vigor  and  initiative  —  so  many  of  the  characteristics 
which  we  have  rightly  come  to  call  American. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  TREASURES  UNDERGROUND 

THE  forests,  the  crops,  and  the  fertility  of  the  soil 
itself  are  renewable.  But  the  processes  of  Nature 
in  mineral  making  are  so  slow  that  we  cannot 
count  upon  any  important  increase  in  the  supply  even  in  the 
lifetime  of  this  Nation.  Once  the  minerals  are  gone,  they 
are,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  practically  gone  forever. 

When  people  speak  of  minerals,  we  often  think  only  of 
the  precious  minerals,  like  gold  and  silver.  We  are  likely 
to  forget  the  minerals  which  are  not  precious  in  the  sense 
that  we  do  not  make  watches  and  jewelry  of  them,  but 
which  are  far  more  necessary  to  our  happiness  and  to  our 
existence  than  all  the  precious  minerals  put  together.  These 
are  coal,  and  iron,  and  oil. 

Think  what  it  would  mean  if  we  had  no  coal.  What 
would  happen?  W^e  would  burn  wood,  instead,  so  long  as 
it  lasted,  and  although  we  would  suffer  great  hardship 
our  existence  could  still  go  on.  Of  course,  without  coal, 
even  while  we  still  had  wood,  most  factories  would  have  to 
shut  down,  few  of  the  trains  could  run,  and  there  would 
be  no  gas  to  light  our  cities,  except  those  so  fortunate  as 
to  have  an  available  supply  of  natural  gas.  The  cities 
themselves  would  dwindle  and  men  would  live  farther  apart. 
The  ocean  liners  and  the  steamboats  would  have  to  stop, 
and  it  would  take  six  weeks  to  sail  to  England,  even  with 
fair  winds,  instead  of  as  many  days.  A  great  ocean  liner 
burns  five  thousand  tons  of  coal  on  one  trip,  the  amount  in 

I3Q 


I-  roin  plioln,  copyright  iijnj,  by  Undcruood  and  Uitdtruood 


iXIining  copper,  a  mile  underground 


THE    TREASURES    UNDERGROUND        141 

an  average  acre  of  coal  land.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
burns  six  acres  of  coal  in  one  day.  Where  there  was  no 
water  power  available  there  would  be  no  electricity  to 
light  cities  and  houses,  and  to  run  street  cars  and  suburban 
lines,  and  to  do  that  great  part  of  the  work  of  the  country 
which  electricity  is  now  doing. 

Still  men  could  exist,  although  they  would  live  much  as 
our  forefathers  did,  for  without  coal  most  of  the  growth 
in  industry  and  in  transportation,  and  the  increase  in  com- 
fort and  luxury  which  the  last  few  hundred  years  has  seen, 
would  not  have  been  possible.  But  we  would  not  live 
happily,  as  people  lived  in  the  Colonial  days  and  before, 
for  they  did  not  know  civilization  as  we  know  it. 

Those  were  the  days  of  the  stage  coaches,  and  the  great 
estates,  and  the  many  servants,  when  most  people  lived  in 
the  country,  and  the  towns  as  yet  were  small  and  of  little 
importance  in  the  life  of  the  nation;  the  days  when  what 
we  call  "  business  "  in  the  modern  sense  had  not  developed; 
days  when  men  were  much  more  independent  of  each  other 
than  they  are  now;  days  which  are  beautiful  to  look  back 
upon,  but  in  which  it  would  not  be  beautiful  to  live,  for 
us  who  profit  by  the  great  strides  which  mankind  has  made 
between  that  time  and  this  twentieth  century.  It  is  an  easy 
and  a  pleasant  thing  to  go  forward  with  the  march  of  civili- 
zation, but  a  terrible  and  a  lamentable  thing  for  any  man  or 
any  nation  to  go  backward  with  it. 

What  would  happen  when  the  wood  was  all  gone?  Gone 
it  soon  would  be,  for  if  we  had  no  coal  the  one  hundred 
million  people  in  this  country  would  use  up  all  the  forests, 
big  trees  and  small,  for  firewood  in  a  very  few  years,  pro- 
vided we  got  no  coal  from  other  countries;  and  we  could 
count  only  very  little  upon  them. 

Once  the  forests  were  gone  as  well  as  the  coal,  there 
would  begin  in  America  a  period  of  the  most  terrible  suf- 


From  photo,  copyright  iqoj,  by  Underwood  and  Unaenvood 

At  the  mouth  of  a  copper  mine 


THE    TREASURES    UNDERGROUND        143 

fering  the  world  has  ever  seen.  First  would  come  a  move- 
ment southward,  for  men  could  not  withstand  the  rigors  of 
our  northern  winters  without  fires  to  warm  them.  Re- 
maining sources  of  heat,  like  oil,  natural  gas,  and  electricity 
generated  by  water  power,  would  rise  to  such  famine  prices 
that  only  the  very  rich  could  buy  them. 

After  the  South  was  reached,  and  men  forgot  the  bitter 
cold  from  which  they  Hed,  what  would  they  find  to  do? 
Practically  every  mill  would  be  shut  down  for  there  would 
be  no  fuel  to  feed  them;  trains  would  stop,  and  nearly  all 
manufacture  would  cease.  People  would  crowd  into  the 
cities,  and  then  would  come  the  lawlessness  which  often 
follows  when  panic-stricken  men  herd  together  under  stress 
of  some  great  fear  —  as,  on  a  vastly  smaller  scale,  in  times 
of  earthquake,  as  in  San  Francisco,  within  besieged  cities, 
and  on  sinking  ships. 

Try  to  imagine  the  suffering  and  the  slow,  terrible  death 
of  one  man,  alone  upon  a  desert  island;  multiply  his  suf- 
fering one  hundred  million  times,  and  mingle  with  them  the 
terrors  of  pestilence,  and  you  will  get  a  faint  picture  of  what 
America  would  be  if  we  had  neither  wood  nor  coal. 

It  is  better  that  a  man  should  die  than  live  in  such  times; 
and  every  man  who  wastes  coal,  either  in  using  or  mining 
it,  goes  just  so  far  toward  increasing  the  possibility  that 
such   times    will    ever   come. 

Now  let  us  go  and  see  for  ourselves  how  men  are  mining 
the  coal  which  we  must  always  have,  not  only  in  order  to 
live  happily,  but  to  live  at  all. 

In  a  Coal  Mine. 

It  is  a  short  journey  for  those  of  us  who  live  in  the 
East  into  the  great  coal  fields  of  Pennsylvania  from  which 
comes  over  half  the  coal  mined  in  America.     We  do  not 


144  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

travel  far  before  we  realize  that  we  shall  not  see  much  that 
is  beautiful,  for  the  coal  country  is  unlovely  almost  beyond 
belief.  By  day  we  see  melancholy  fields  and  denuded  for- 
ests, with  grimy  villages  clustered  around  the  black  mouths 
of  the  mines.  Gaunt  factories  and  glowing  blast  furnaces 
are  frequent;  for  where  the  soft  coal  is  found,  there  are 
the  steel  and  iron  makers.  Between  the  mining  towns  over 
which  hangs  a  pall  of  smoke  from  one  year's  end  to  the 
other,  we  breathe  with  relief  the  sweet  night  air  of  the  open 
country,  and  are  thankful  for  the  fields  and  forests  which 
the  miners  have  not  yet  disturbed. 

As  we  near  the  mine  which  we  are  to  see  we  meet  gangs 
of  men,  the  whites  of  whose  eyes  show  strangely  in  their 
grimy  faces,  and  who  talk  a  medley  of  strange  tongues. 
For  of  the  million  miners  in  America,  only  half  speak 
English,  and  two-thirds  are  of  foreign  birth,  chiefly  Italians, 
Russians  and  Poles. 

These  gangs  of  men  have  just  finished  their  eight  hours' 
shift.  In  the  coal  mines  work  seldom  stops,  and  each 
twenty-four  hours  is  divided  into  three  working  days  of 
eight  hours  each,  so  that  as  one  gang  of  miners  leave,  an- 
other gang  takes  its  place.  Eight  hours  under  ground  and 
sixteen  hours  abo\'e  ground  is  the  coal  miner's  average  day. 
The  time  under  ground  is  spent  in  the  hardest  labor  that 
any  great  body  of  men  have  to  do. 

Now  we  are  at  the  head  of  the  shaft,  for  the  mine  we 
are  going  to  see  is  what  is  known  as  a  "  shaft  "  mine.  Coal 
mines  ha\e  either  vertical  shafts  to  reach  the  coal,  or  thev 
tunnel  into  the  coal  from  the  side  of  a  hill,  so  that  cars  can 
be  hauled  straight  out  of  the  ?nine.  There  is  not  much  to 
see  so  far,  except  a  square  hole  in  the  ground  about  ten 
feet  across  and  lined  with  timbers,  which  stretches  down- 
ward until  its  outlines  are  lost  in  the  darkness.  To  one 
side  Is  an  engine  house,  which  c\'Identlv  operates  the  eleva- 


I 


THE    TREASURES    UNDERGROUND       145 

tor,  or  what  miners  call  the  "  cage,"  by  which  men  and  coal 
are  raised  and  lowered  from  the  surface  to  the  mine  work- 
ings. Nearer  still  to  the  mouth  of  the  mine,  but  so  pro- 
tected as  to  be  out  of  range  in  case  of  a  mine  explosion,  is  a 
great  wheel  which  looks  a  good  deal  like  an  electric  fan,  ex- 
cept that  it  is  fifteen  feet  across.  It  is  kept  whirling  night 
and  day  to  pump  fresh  air  down  the  shaft.  A  railroad 
siding  near  by,  the  cluster  of  miners'  cabins,  the  company's 
offices,  the  whirling  fan,  and  in  the  midst  the  black  hole  In 
the  ground  —  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  below  lie  fifty  miles 
of  mine  tunnels  in  which  three  hundred  men  and  fifty  mules 
are  working,  some  of  them  seven  hundred  and  the  rest  eight 
hundred  feet  beneath  where  we  stand. 

Now  we  are  in  the  cage  which  drops  rapidly  down;  and 
we  learn  a  little  of  how  a  man  must  feel  who  falls  from  a 
tall  building  or  shoots  the  Horseshoe  Rapids  in  a  barrel. 
The  car  stops  with  a  jerk,  and  we  leave  it  without  reluctance. 

Before  us  stretches  a  tunnel,  supported  by  timbers  a  foot 
thick  and  about  eight  feet  long,  which  are  set  upright  from 
floor  to  roof.  The  tunnel  is  dimly  lit  by  electric  light  bulbs, 
and  down  its  length  as  far  as  we  can  see  is  a  miniature 
railroad  track,  over  which  big  mules  haul  little  cars  loaded 
with  coal  which  the  cage  delivers  at  the  top  of  the  mine 
nearly  as  quickly  as  it  brought  us  down.  We  have  n't  time 
to  go  to  the  end  of  this  "  Intake  "  as  it  is  called,  which  is 
practically  an  avenue  in  this  underground  town,  and  nearly 
three  miles  long  from  end  to  end.  To  the  right,  to  the  left, 
and  behind  us  are  other  "  Intakes  "  coming  together  at  the 
mine  shaft  like  the  four  avenues  which  meet  in  a  city  circle, 
and  down  each  twinkle  the  electric  lights  anci  stretch  the 
steel  rails  of  the  truck  line  over  which  the  coal  makes  the 
first  lap  of  its  long  journey  to  the  user. 

We  follow  one  of  these  avenues,  and  before  long  we  come 
to   a   cross   street   runnlns   to    risht   and  left.      About   one 


146 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


hundred  feet  further  Is  another  and  then  another  and  an- 
other, all  about  the  same  distance  apart.  We  walk  down 
one  of  these  streets  which  bisect  the  main  avenue,  and 
which  average  about  two  hundred  feet  in  length ;  leading 
off  from  it  are  "  rooms,"  about  ten  feet  wide  and  twenty 
feet  long,  in  which  the  actual  coal  mining  is  going  on.     In 


A  boy  driver  and  his  mule,  in  a  coal  mine 


each  of  these  rooms  are  miners,  usually  two  In  each,  some- 
times standing  upright  when  the  vein  of  coal  is  thick,  bent 
over  or  working  on  their  knees  when  it  is  shallow,  swing- 
ing their  picks  against  the  wall  of  coal  —  "  undercutting  " 
It,  so  that  it  can  be  scaled  off  in  huge  chunks  by  blows  above, 
shooting  it  with  explosives,  doing  by  the  light  of  the  lamps 
in  their  hats  the  hardest  work  men  follow  in  America. 

We  ha\'e  seen  on  our  journeys  together  men  working 
untlcr  many  different  conditions.  We  have  seen  the  lithe, 
tanned  riders  of  the  plains,  whose  charges  are  the  great 
hertls   n\    range   cattle.      We   ha\"e   seen   the   artlxc,    muscu- 


CTJ 

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o 


148  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

lar  loggers,  facing  cheerfully  and  successfully  the  heavy 
task  of  getting  big  logs  out  of  cilfficult  country.  We  have 
seen  the  farmers  behind  their  plows.  Everywhere  we  have 
found  men  tolling.  But  never  have  we  seen  men  who  work 
as  do  these  miners. 

The  air  is  heav^y  and  full  of  coal  dust,  In  spite  of  all 
that  is  done  to  keep  It  pure  and  wholesome.  For  the  dust 
rises  constantly  from  the  coal-cutting  machines,  is  ground 
out  by  the  feet  of  the  mules,  puffs  out  In  clouds  when  a 
"  shot  "  is  Hred,  and  more  and  more  Is  freed  by  every  blow 
of  the  miners'  picks.  In  this  dust  lies  not  only  discomfort 
for  the  miners,  but  the  most  frequent  cause  of  mine  dis- 
asters, for  coal  dust  is  highly  inflammable  and  very  slight 
causes  will  Ignite  it.  An  electric  spark  from  crossed  wires, 
the  flare  from  the  open  lamp  in  a  miner's  hat,  a  heavy 
charge  of  powder  used  to  bring  down  the  coal  —  any  of 
these  causes  may  convert  in  an  Instant  the  busy  workings 
of  a  mine  into  the  scene  of  an  unspeakable  tragedy. 

Waste  of  Life  and  of  Coal. 

As  we  pick  our  way  through  the  "  rooms  "  and  "  streets  " 
and  "  intakes  "  of  this  great  mine,  It  strikes  us  that  about 
as  much  coal  is  left  untouched  as  Is  mined  and  taken  away. 
An  enormous  quantity  remains  to  support  the  roof  of  the 
workings,  which  may  be  cheaper  for  the  mining  company 
than  supporting  them  with  timbers,  but  certainly  causes 
great  waste;  for  once  abandoned,  this  mine  Is  not  likely 
ever  to  be  entered  again  for  mining.  We  also  see  that,  like 
many  lumbermen,  the  coal  miner  Is  apt  to  take  the  best 
and  to  leave  Inferior  stuff,  simply  because  it  does  not  pay 
him  as  well  to  take  it  out,  although  much  of  It  is  fair  fuel 
for  many  purposes  and  could  be  inincil  and  sol  J  at  a  reason- 
able profit.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  soft  coal  mines,  about 


THE    TREASURES    UNDERGROUND        149 

as  much  is  wasted  as  is  produced.  This  waste  is  being 
gradually  reduced  by  better  methods  of  mining,  but  it  is 
still  far  larger  than  it  should  be.  But  the  most  terrible 
waste  in  coal  mines  is  not  of  the  coal  itself,  but  of  the  life 
of  those  who  labor  there. 

Have  you  ever  seen  twenty  thousand  men  together? 
Very  few  of  us  have,  except  those  who  have  seen  the  field 
maneuvers  of  great  bodies  of  troops,  and  even  then  it  is 
seldom  that  twenty  thousand  men  are  all  in  sight  at  one 
time.  Have  you  ever  thought  what  twenty  thousand  men 
mean  to  this  country,  as  well  as  to  their  own  families 
whose  support  they  are?  Twenty  thousand  men  with  tools 
in  their  hands,  and  strong  arms  with  which  to  use  them? 
Twenty  thousand  individual  sources  of  energy  and  develop- 
ment and  usefulness  and  achievement,  even  if  that  achieve- 
ment be  no  higher  than  mining  the  coal  we  use?  Such  an 
army  of  workers  is  a  great  force  in  the  world;  a  force  so 
great  that  it  is  difficult  to  estimate  its  value  to  this  nation 
in  mere  terms  of  money.  Ten  years  has  seen  this  force 
destroyed  in  coal  mines  alone,  for  in  the  last  ten  years  more 
than  twenty  thousand  coal  miners  have  lost  their  lives  in 
mine  disasters.  And  the  same  ten  years  have  seen  fifty 
thousand  coal  miners  injured,  many  of  them  for  life.  These 
figures  are  for  coal  mines  only.  They  do  not  include  metal 
mines,  in  which  from  five  hundred  to  one  thousand  men 
are  killed  each  year.  In  proportion  to  the  number  of  miners 
employed,  more  are  killed  and  injured  in  American  mines 
than  in  those  of  any  other  country  in  the  world. 

Mining  is  one  of  the  most  hazardous  of  occupations, 
and  some  loss  of  life  is  inevitable  in  view  of  the  enormous 
number  of  men  employed,  which  reaches  over  a  million; 
while  two  million  more  are  engaged  in  handling,  transport- 
ing and  manufacturing  mineral  products.  But  the  appalling 
death  roll  is  due  very  largely  to  disregard  of  the  ciangers 


I50 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


ever  present  in  mines,  which  older  countries  have  learned 
to  guard  carefully  against  through  bitter  experience.  There 
is  much  carelessness,  as  to  ordinary  precautions,  on  the  part 
of  mining  companies  and  of  many  miners  themselves;  while 
very  few  states  have  as  yet  done  their  full  duty  in  passing 
and  enforcing  laws  compelling  both  miners  and  mine  com- 
panies to  be  more  careful.     The  danger  steadily  increases, 


After  the  explosion.     At  the  mouth  of  a  coal  mine,  after  a 
disaster  which  killed  356  men 


for  as  our  demand  for  coal  grows  larger  and  the  supply 
dwindles,  the  mines  are  dug  deeper  and  deeper,  more  gas 
is  encountered,  and  more  and  more  untrained  men  are  em- 
}il()\cd  to  keep  pace  with  the  demand  lor  more  coal. 

We  have  seen  a  forest  fire,  in  which  there  is  a  certain 
magniticence  in  spite  of  its  terrible  power  to  destroy.  But 
we  shall  not  see  a  fire  in  a  mine  because  there  are  some 
things  it  is  better  not  to  see,  unless  we  can  help  by  seeing 
them.  I'rom  the  haggard  little  group  of  wi\-cs  and  mothers 
at  the   mouth   of  the  black   shaft  to   the   reeking  pit  below, 


THE    TREASURES    UNDERGROUND        151 

in  which  men  lie  sometimes  shattered  unspeakably  by  the 
force  of  explosion,  the  story  of  a  mine  disaster  is  heart- 
rending beyond  all  words.  It  is  all  the  more  heartrending 
because  often  it  is  a  story  that  need  not  have  been  told, 
had  It  not  been  for  the  carelessness  of  some  mining  company, 


Waiting.    The  crowd  near  the  mouth  of  the  shaft  after  a  disaster 

in  a  coal  mine 


or  even  some  state,  whose  first  duty  it  is  to  see  that  careless 
mining  companies  are  forced  to  be  careful. 

Did  you  ever  realize  how  long  fires  burn  in  coal  mines? 
There  are  fires  burning  in  coal  mines  to-day  which  have 
been  burning  more  than  twenty-five  years.  Near  Summit 
Hill,  Pennsylvania,  a  mine  fire  burned  fifty-one  years  and 
destroyed  twenty-six  million  dollars'  worth  of  coal.  Near 
Jobs,  Ohio,  a  tract  of  coal  valued  at  several  million  dollars 
has  been  burning  since  1884.  At  Deadwood,  South  Dakota, 
a  million  dollars  has  been  spent  In  fighting  fire  in  a  copper 
mine. 


152  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

The  Bureau  of  Mines. 

So  it  is  clear  that,  in  spite  of  much  that  has  been  done 
already  to  preserve  life  and  to  check  waste  in  coal  mining, 
much  more  remains  to  be  done  before  we  eliminate  un- 
necessary waste  either  of  life  or  of  coal. 

The  most  powerful  agency  for  bringing  about  these  great 
reforms  in  the  mining  industry  is  the  United  States  Bureau 
of  Mines,  whose  chief,  Dr.  Joseph  A.  Holmes,  has  devoted 
many  years  of  his  useful  life  to  a  study  of  methods  for  the 
prevention  of  mine  disasters.  His  Bureau  is  just  as  much  a 
life-saving  service  as  is  that  Bureau  of  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment which  maintains  life-boat  stations  and  their  crews 
along  our  coast. 

The  Bureau  of  Mines  has  three  great  fields  of  activity. 
The  first  is  to  study  the  causes  of  loss  of  life  in  the  mines 
and  the  best  methods  of  preventing  It.  The  second  is  to 
make  similar  studies  of  the  causes  and  the  best  methods 
for  preventing  unnecessary  waste  of  minerals  in  mining  and 
in  use.  The  third  task  is  to  give  prompt  and  effective  assist- 
ance on  the  ground  when  mine  disasters  occur.  In  the 
three  years  since  this  gov^ernment  work  began,  the  average 
yearly  deaths  in  coal  mining  have  been  reduced  by  one 
fourth. 

The  Bureau  has  equipped  several  mine  rescue  cars,  which 
are  constantly  traveling  through  the  important  coal  fields. 
On  each  of  these  cars  is  a  crew  composed  of  practical  mining 
experts  trained  in  mine  rescue  and  first  aid  methods.  So 
soon  as  word  of  disaster  is  received,  one  of  these  cars  is 
rushed  to  the  scene  to  share  and  often  to  direct  the  work  of 
life  saving,  and  to  get  all  possible  information  regarding 
the  cause  of  the  disaster  as  a  basis  for  the  prevention  of 
similar  disasters  hereafter.  It  is  a  task  which  is  noble  in 
its   purpose   and   most   efficient   in    its   execution.      I, ike   the 


OS 

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OS 

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154 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


work  of  the  Forest  Service  and  the  Reclamation  Service, 
the  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Mines  has  great  and  growing 
usefuhiess,  above  all  because  it  deals  with  the  problems  of 
an  industry  not  from  far  off,  but  practically,  and  on  its  own 
ground.     Like  the  rangers  of  the  Forest  Service,  the  crews 


Plmtu  b  I    Uinju:, 


Mining  gold  in  Alaska 


of  the  rescue  cars  maintained  by  the  Bureau  of  Mines  must 
face  hardships  and  great  danger  in  their  work.  In  April. 
191 1,  brave  Joseph  Evans,  a  foreman  on  one  of  the  mine 
rescue  cars,  lost  his  life  from  exhaustion,  through  his  heroic 
disregard  of  self  in  his  efforts  to  save  life  after  a  terrible 
mine  disaster  near  Throop,  Pennsylvania. 

We  have  all  agreed  that  figures  are  puzzling  things,  and 
that  when  they  are  huge  figures  we  are  sometimes  apt  to 
lose  their  real  significance.     So  let  us  omit  the  billions  and 


THE    TREASURES    UNDERGROUND        155 

even  trillions  of  tons  which  represent  the  extent  of  our 
mineral  resources,  and  see  what  the  best  informed  men  say- 
regarding  how  long  these  resources  will  last  at  the  present 
rate  of  consumption  and  of  waste.  These  after  all  are  the 
facts  of  real  importance. 

These  men  say  that  if  we  go  on  as  we  have  been  going, 
at  the  present  increasing  rate  of  consumption,  the  easily  ac- 
cessible supplies  of  coal  will  be  exhausted  in  a  little  over  one 
hundred  years,  and  the  entire  supply  will  be  exhausted  in 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Of  course,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  we  will  never  actually  exhaust  our  coal  supply.  As 
the  supply  decreases  the  price  will  rise,  and  we  will  be 
forced  to  the  economies  which  we  are  merely  talking  about 
now,  instead  of  practising.  But  the  need  of  making  the 
supply  last  longer  is  a  very  real  need,  because  the  quicker 
the  coal  goes  the  greater  will  be  the  scarcity  and  the  higher 
the  cost  of  coal  to  each  of  us. 

The  iron  ores  are  much  nearer  to  exhaustion  than  the  coal. 
If  consumption  goes  on  increasing  as  it  has  in  the  past,  we 
will  have  used  up  all  the  high-grade  iron  ores  within  fifty 
years.  So  in  the  case  of  the  most  important  minerals,  the 
coal  and  the  iron,  like  that  of  the  forest,  we  are  not  yet 
living  within  our  means. 


CHAPTER    VII 

WILD    LIFE 

HERE  we  are  in  Europe  again,  this  time  in  a  pros- 
perous river  city  of  half  a  million  people. 
At  first  the  city  interests  us,  but  not  for  very 
long.  Great  towns  are  much  alike  the  world  over,  and  there 
is  no  striking  difference  between  a  street  here  and  one  in 
Boston,  or  Chicago,  or  New  York.  When  we  have  seen 
the  ancient  buildings,  which  are  the  only  important  things 
which  this  city  has  and  which  most  American  cities  lack, 
we  wish  for  the  open  country,  as  one  always  does  who  is 
not  used  to  towns.  Wc  hail  a  cab  driver  and  tell  him  to 
take  us  for  a  drive  in  the  park,  if  the  city  happens  to  possess 
one.  He  tells  us  they  have  a  very  beautiful  park,  but  that 
he  thinks  we  would  enjoy  still  more  a  drive  in  the  forest. 

We  are  standing  on  a  cement  pavement  as  we  talk  with 
this  cab  driver.  Street  cars  and  automobiles  are  constantly 
passing;  big  buildings  are  all  around  us,  anci  the  roar  of 
a  great  city  is  in  our  ears.  We  find  it  hard  to  believe 
that  there  is  a  forest  so  near.  Only  half  convinced,  we 
climb  aboard  the  old-fashioned,  roomy  vehicle,  and  the 
horses  jog  off. 

The  driver  is  right.  In  half  an  hour  we  drive  straight 
from  the  town  into  a  great  forest  much  like  those  we  saw 
before  in  Europe,  except  that  there  are  still  more  roads, 
and  the  woods  are,  if  possible,  even  better  cared  for.     But 

156 


WILD    LIFE 


157 


after  all  it  is  a  real  forest  and  not  a  park.  We  pass  planta- 
tions, and  wood-cutters  at  work,  and  stretches  of  dense 
young  growth  where  the  old  forest  has  been  felled,  and  a 
couple  of  great  forest  nurseries,  which  makes  it  clear  that 
this  forest  is  for  use  and  not  merely  for  show. 


Pinitti  by  George  Shiias,  jrd 

The  midnight  reflections  of  a  white-tail  deer 

If  we  had  time  we  might  go  to  other  cities  in  Europe, 
and  to  the  smaller  towns,  and  even  to  many  of  the  villages, 
and  near  most  of  them  we  would  find,  as  in  this  city,  forests 
whose  owner  is  the  city,  the  town  or  the  village.  Some 
village  forests  are  so  productive  that  the  sale  of  the  wood 
raised  in  them  pays  many  village  expenses,  like  the  cost  of 
lighting  it  and  keeping  its  streets  in  order. 

As  we  drive  through  this  beautiful  forest  we  meet 
many    people    who    are    enjoying    it    like    ourselves.      We 


i;8 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


meet  brilliantly  uniformed  officers  on  horseback,  and  well- 
to-do  citizens  with  their  families,  rolling  along  in  com- 
fortable carriages,  and  other  citizens  taking  their  pleasure 
on  foot.  The  thought  strikes  us,  what  a  fine  thing  is  a  great 
forest  at  the  edge  of  a  great  city,  where  men  and  women 
may  get  pleasure  and  health,  and  where  the  children  may 
play  all  day! 


PItoto  by  GcorA^'  Sliiras,  3rd 

A  long  swim.    A  caribou  crossing  a  lake  in  Newfoundland 


Parks  are  vastly  better  than  nothing,  but  this  City  Forest 
means  so  much  more  than  a  park.  There  are  no  signs 
warning  us  to  keep  off  the  grass,  and  there  are  shady,  wind- 
ing paths,  instead  of  cement  walks,  and  the  clean,  sweet 
scent  of  the  woods  is  all  about  us,  and  there  is  the  freedom 
from  the  sight  of  the  buildings  and  from  tbe  city  noises 
which  a  park  so  seldom  gives. 

After  awhile  we  tire  of  driving,  and  the  wish  possesses 
us  to  explore  this  beautiful  forest  on  foot.  So  we  leave  the 
carriage  and  take  haphazard  the  first  trail  leading  from  the 
road. 


WILD    LIFE  159 

The  Roe  Deer  and  the  Ranger. 

Soon  we  are  in  the  deep  woods,  and,  for  all  the  sight  or 
sound  we  get  of  it,  apparently  many  miles  from  the  great 
city  which  throbs  and  hums  only  half  an  hour  away.  That 
is  what  the  Europeans  would  say  in  speaking  of  the  distance, 
for  over  there  they  speak  of  the  length  of  a  road  or  a 
trail  as  the  time  one  needs  in  which  to  walk  or  drive  it. 

It  is  a  very  good  way,  because  it  tells  what  one  really 
wants  to  know,  which  is,  not  how  far  it  is,  but  how  long  the 
trip  will  take. 

The  trail  leads  us  down  a  deep  ravine  and  then  into  a 
little  grass-covered  opening  in  the  forest.  Grazing  within 
it  we  see  a  group  of  the  delicate,  beautiful  little  roe  deer, 
whose  natural  home  is  throughout  Europe.  The  bucks 
weigh  only  about  seventy  pounds,  and  the  does  are  even 
smaller.  When  we  are  within  about  fifty  yards  they  scamper 
away  in  earnest,  and  leave  us  to  wonder  what  deer  are  doing 
in  such  a  place.  We  make  up  our  minds  that  there  must  be 
a  fence  although  we  fail  to  see  it,  and  that  these  little  deer 
are  kept  here  for  people  to  look  at,  as  they  are  in  some 
parks  at  home. 

A  little  further  down  the  trail  we  meet  a  forest  ranger, 
who  is  a  very  grand  looking  person.  He  wears  a  green 
uniform,  cut  as  if  he  were  a  soldier,  and  theatrical-looking 
top-boots,  and  at  his  side  hangs  a  short  sword  with  an  ivory 
hilt,  and  on  his  head  is  a  jaunty  green  felt  hat  with  a  rosette 
on  the  side,  made  of  the  long  hair  from  the  breast  of  the 
chamois.  How  our  rangers  on  the  National  Forests,  in 
their  serviceable  uniforms,  cowboy  boots,  anci  rough  gray 
shirts,  would  laugh  at  him  !  And  if  they  had  him  on  the  fire 
line,  or  put  him  to  packing  a  horse,  or  taking  care  of  him- 
self In  rough  country,  they  would  laugh  at  him  still  more. 
But   if   he    had    them    in    this    City    Forest    and   set    them 


i6o 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


to  caring  for  forest  plantations,  and  to  directing  some  of 
the  elaborate  forest  cuttings,  or  to  building  stone  roads, 
instead  of  their  own  rough  trails,  the  laugh  might  be  on 
them. 


plhili:  •<}:  (,..'..r   SItiras,  3rd 

The  end.    Mortally  wounded  during  a  snow  storm,  this  deer 
was  not  found  by  the  hunter 

We  tell  this  ranger  about  the  deer,  and  ask  where  is 
the  fence  which  encloses  them. 

"  There  is  no  fence,"  he  says.  "  I  he  deer  you  saw  were 
rimning  wild;  there  are  several  thousand  of  them  in  this 
forest,  and  each  year  many  hundred  are  shot  by  sportsmen 
and  used  for  food.  The  yield  of  deer  here  is  studied  and 
taken  just  like  the  yield  of  wood.  Only  the  increase  is  killed. 
We  do  the  same  thing  with  the  hares  —  big  brown  fellows, 
the   kind   you    call    Belgian    hares   in    America;     this    forest 


WILD    LIFE 


i6i 


is  full  of  them,  and  the  yield  is  well  over  a  thousand 
every  year.  In  the  aggregate  the  income  e^ch  year  from 
game  from  the  City  Forest  is  many  thousand  of  your 
dollars." 

Then  this  ranger  goes  on  to  tell  us  that  what  is  being  done 


A  happy  family 


Photo  by  Gcoiic  Shiras,  3rd 


with  the  game  in  this  forest  is  done  in  all  the  forests  of  the 
kind.  He  is  a  well-informed  ranger,  and  he  gives  surpris- 
ing figures  as  to  the  income  from  game  alone  in  the  whole 
country.  He  points  out  that  the  care  given  the  game,  and 
its  recognition  as  a  great  resource,  means  much  more  than 
mere  revenue.  It  materially  increases  the  local  food  supply, 
and  It  enables  poor  people  as  well  as  the  rich  to  eat  game, 
for  in  that  country  venison  costs  very  little  more  than  beef 
or  mutton. 


1 62  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

Of  course,  it  is  all  very  different  from  what  we  are  used 
to  at  home.  Europe  has  no  wild  land,  in  the  sense  that 
our  Public  Domain  is  wild  and  open  to  any  one,  to  hunt  or 
fish  upon  and  to  take  away  what  he  kills  or  catches  at  no 
cost  except  what  he  pay  to  the  State  for  a  hunting  or  fishing 
license.  In  Europe,  the  license  carries  the  right  to  kill 
the  game  but  not  to  take  it  away,  so  that  a  man  pays  first 
for  the  license,  and  then  for  the  game  itself,  at  so  much  a 
pound,  since  all  game  is  recognized  as  the  property  of  the 
State. 

A    Royal  Hunt. 

The  elaborate  way  in  which  hunting  is  done  in  Germany 
would  amuse  those  Americans  who  are  accustomed  to  do 
their  hunting  alone,  to  finding  their  own  game,  and  to  bring- 
ing it  in  unaided.  But  the  Germans  love  to  make  a  splen- 
did picture  of  everything,  from  a  regiment  of  lancers  in 
their  jaunty  uniforms  with  penants  fluttering  from  the  shafts 
of  their  lances,  to  a  forest  scene  In  which  huntsmen  are  the 
actors.  Even  the  killing  of  one  little  roe  deer  calls  for 
several  green  uniformed  rangers  to  act  as  beaters,  and  for 
many  toasts  and  hunting  songs  after  the  hunt  is  over. 

Strangely  enough,  often  the  more  distinguished  a  Ger- 
man is  in  his  own  country,  the  less  his  hunting  partakes  of 
the  nature  of  real  sport,  according  to  American  standards. 
For  example,  when  members  of  the  Bavarian  Royal  House 
go  hunting,  they  usually  visit  a  preserve  in  a  great  forest 
region  called  the  Spessart,  where  five  thousand  acres  have 
been  enclosed  in  a  strong  fence  and  well  stocked  with  red 
deer  and  wild  boar. 

If  boar  are  to  be  killed,  preparations  begin  several  weeks 
in  advance.  Beaters  drive  the  boar  within  a  strongly  fenced 
enclosure  of  several  acres  convenient  to  the  hunting  lodge. 


WILD    LIFE  163 

From  this  herd  the  finest  tuskers  are  selected  up  to  the  num- 
ber to  be  killed,  which  Is  generally  about  one  hundred. 
These  are  driven  Into  a  still  smaller  enclosure,  about  two 
hundred  feet  long  and  half  as  wide.  In  the  middle  is  a 
little  stockade  about  breast-high,  made  by  driving  stout  poles 
into  the  ground,  and  just  large  enough  to  hold  the  hunts- 
men and  a  bearer  to  load  and  hand  him  his  rifle. 

When  the  hunt  begins  —  and  It  Is  a  very  grand  occasion 
indeed  —  the  distinguished  visitor  Is  escorted  with  much 
ceremony  to  the  little  stockade.  Then  the  boar  are 
driven  up  and  down  the  narrow  enclosure  until  the  hunter's 
high-power  rifle  lays  them  all  low.  The  royal  huntsman 
is  then  warmly  congratulated  by  his  retainers  upon  the 
certainty  of  his  aim,  and  the  hunt  is  over  until  another 
season. 

This  Is  Indeed  a  parody  of  sport,  yet  there  Is  plentiful 
opportunity  for  It;  for,  thanks  to  their  methods  of  getting 
as  much  as  possible  out  of  everything,  their  small,  densely 
populated  country  contains  abundant  game. 

The  You.ng  Eiiropcaus  in  Nezv  York. 

Now  suppose  that  instead  of  being  Americans  in  Europe 
we  are  a  group  of  Europeans  seeing  America;  young  Euro- 
peans, accustomed  only  to  the  conditions  of  their  own  coun- 
try and  who  for  the  first  time  are  visiting  ours,  of  whose 
size  and  great  resources  and  wonderful  prosperity  they 
have  heard  so  much. 

These  young  Europeans  set  out  to  see  New  York,  as  we 
might  to  see  a  European  city.  For  awhile  the  skyscrapers 
and  the  subway  and  the  teeming  life  of  the  busy  streets 
chain  their  attention;  but  It  is  not  long  before  they  seek,  as 
we  did,  some  respite  from  city  sight-seeing. 

They  are  well-to-do  young  people  who  have  had  plenty 


1 64  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

of  hunting  at  home,  where  hunting  is  so  easy  and  game  so 
plentiful;  but  it  occurs  to  them  that  now  is  their  chance, 
not  only  for  an  outing,  but  for  some  sport  along  with  it. 
They  paint  glowing  pictures  to  each  other  of  how  line  a 
thing  it  will  be  to  carry  back  home  great  game  heads  and 
pelts;  and  what  a  jollification  there  will  be  when  they  get 
back  and  the  health  of  the  mighty  hunters  In  foreign  parts 
Is  drunk  in  fragrant  wine ! 

So  they  get  out  their  heavy  rifles,  of  which  both  wood 
and  metal  parts  are  richly  ornamented,  and  their  "  Ruck- 
sacks," which  are  canvas  bags  fastened  across  the  back  by 
straps  around  the  shoulders,  and  their  elaborate  hunting 
clothes  and  hobnailed  boots. 

The  next  question  Is,  where  shall  they  go?  They  look  up 
the  hotel  clerk,  who  Is  the  only  substitute  they  can  find  for 
the  attentive  and  well-informed  host  of  the  little  inns  they 
know  at  home. 

The  hotel  clerk  at  first  takes  his  questioners  to  be  crazy. 
Here  Is  a  group  of  young  men  in  Robln-Hood-looking 
clothes,  the  like  of  which  he  has  never  seen  before  in  the 
biggest  hotel  In  one  of  the  largest  cities  In  the  world,  and 
they  are  asking  him  casually  to  tell  them,  please,  where  they 
can  go  to  kill  a  deer ! 

This  hotel  clerk  has  never  seen  a  deer  except  in  a  zoo, 
and  his  most  thrilling  hunting  experiences  have  been  con- 
fined to  the  days  of  his  by-gone  youth,  when  he  used  to  shoot 
an  occasional  rabbit,  or  a  still  less  frequent  grouse.  But  at 
last  it  dawns  upon  him  that  all  that  his  questioners  lack  is  a 
knowledge  of  America.  So  he  enlightens  their  Ignorance, 
and  tells  them  that  the  days  In  which  men  could  do  success- 
ful deer  hunting  In  the  Immediate  neighborhood  of  New 
York  have  been  over  for  a  trifle  of  a  hundred  years  or  so. 
He  suggests  as  a  compromise  a  short  trip  by  rail  into  the 
country,  where  the  elusive  squirrel  might  be  found,  and  he 


WILD    LIFE 


165 


furnishes  the  young  folk  with  a   letter  to   a   farmer  over 
whose  lands,  as  a  boy,  he  carried  a  shotgun. 

Two  hours  Hnds  our  visitors  leaving  the  train  at  a  sub- 


Pholi)  by  Julian  A.  Dimack 

Not  sure  what  's  going  to  happen 

urban  station  in  the  wide  strip  of  small  farms  which  fringe 
New  York.  They  plod  along  the  dusty  road  to  the  farmer's 
house,  and  find  the  old  farmer  taking  his  ease  on  his  porch 


1 66  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    LN 

after  dinner.  They  present  their  letter  of  introduction  and 
explain  that  they  have  come  to  hunt.  They  get  a  warm 
welcome,  but  little  encouragement  as  to  the  chance  of  a  full 
game  bag. 

"  You  see,  boys,"  says  the  old  farmer,  "  the  game  don't 
have  much  chance  near  a  big  city  or  wherever  many  people 
live.  When  I  was  a  boy  like  you,  I  heard  tell  from  my  own 
grandfather  of  the  time  when  it  was  an  easy  chore  to  go 
into  the  marshes  along  the  creek  on  this  very  farm  and  shoot 


J,  , 

r                    ■                  % 

1 

...  '** 

iiik.. 

_ 

i^ind  three 

wild 

turkeys! 

Photo  by  Julian  A 

.  Dimock 

a  fat  buck  and  bring  him  in,  all  in  a  few  hours.  But  the 
last  deer  killed  in  this  section  was  shot  by  my  father  about 
fifteen  miles  from  here,  on  what  was  then  a  big  forest  tract; 
and  that  was  fifty  years  ago  when  my  father  was  a  young 
man.  There  are  the  horns  over  the  front  door,  and  a  fine 
pair  they  are.  A  good  many  have  tried  to  buy  them,  but 
I  never  could  see  my  way  to  part  with  them. 

"  Small  game?  Well,  it  used  to  be  plentiful,  but  there  is 
mighty  little  of  it  left.  The  turkeys  are  gone,  and  the 
pheasants,  which  those  scientific  fellows  call  "  ruffed  grouse," 
are  about  gone  too;  the  hunters  from  New  York  keep 
the  quail  pretty  scarce,  and  boys  don't  give  the  rabbits  much 
chance.  There  may  be  a  few  squirrels  left  in  my  woodlot. 
for  squirrels  are  hard  to  find  and  not  very  good  to  eat.  I 
saw  two  one  day  last  week,  but  the  woodlot  is  pretty  big 
and  the  squirrels  are  few  and  small;  besides,  you  haven't 
got  any  dog  to  tree  them  with." 


WILD    LIFE 


167 


Hozv  the  Game  has  Divindled. 

The  hopes  of  the  young  Europeans  fade  rapidly  as  the  old 
farmer  describes  what  has  happened  to  the  game.  It  is  a 
new  story  he  tells  them,  of  how  a  great  nation  has  wasted  a 


A  babv  moose 


Pliuto  hv  Julian  A.  Diinock 


resource  which  costs  nothing,  and  which,  if  it  were  taken 
care  of,  would  yield  perpetual  pleasure,  as  well  as  useful 
food,  to  so  many.  The  farmer  takes  pains  to  explain  how 
the  game  has  dwindled,  because  he  likes  these  young  Euro- 
peans with  their  eager  questions  and  their  no  less  eager  at- 
tention to  all  that  he  has  to  say.  Besides,  he  is  a  thought- 
ful man,  and  he  has  been  in  the  West  to  visit  his  own  chil- 
dren, who  settled  there,  and  so  he  has  seen  much  of  his 
own  country.     He  tells  them  how  well  within  his  own  mem- 


i68 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


ory  there  used  to  be  plenty  of  moose  in  that  great  forest 
region  in  Northern  New  York,  known  as  the  Adirondacks, 
but  that  now  a  moose  is  as  scarce  there  as  it  is  in  the  streets 
of  New  York. 


The  antelope  are  now  so  nearly  gone  that  some  states  forbid 

their  being  killed  at  all 


The  farmer  goes  on  to  tell  how  the  antelope  on  the  great 
plains  are  so  nearly  wiped  out  that  in  order  to  keep  the 
species  in  existence  some  of  the  Western  States  have  passed 
laws  forbidding  the  killing  of  any  antelope  at  all.  He  de- 
scribes how  the  elk  have  been  slaughtered,  and  how  every 
winter   many  hundred   starve  to   death   for  lack  of  winter 


WILD    LIFE 


169 


forage.  In  the  old  days  they  had  plenty  to  live  on,  but  now 
the  sheep  and  cattle  eat  the  ranges  clean  in  the  summer,  and 
when  winter  comes  the  elk  find  nothing  to  feed  on. 


i'l.iito  b\<  Charles  D.  Waliott 


In  the  velvet.     Mr.  Walcott  photographed  these  elk  in  the 
early  morning,  when  they  were  investigating  his  camp 


WILD    LIFE 


171 


He  makes  it  plain  that  in  America  big  game  hunting  is 
fast  becoming  a  pleasure  which  only  the  rich  can  enjoy,  or 
those  few  who  live  in  the  remote  regions  in  which  game  still 
abounds;  but  that  for  the  average  man  the  killing  of  a 
moose  or  even  an  elk  means  an  outlay  of  several  hundred 


What  kindness  will  do 


Photo  bv  Julian  A.  Dimock 


dollars  or  more  in  railroad  fare  and  the  hire  of  a  guide,  and 
the  other  expenses  incident  to  a  journey  into  the  wilderness. 
He  surprises  them  by  the  statement  that  only  a  few  of  the 
young  people  in  America  have  ever  seen  big  game,  except 
in  a  zoo  or  in  a  photograph.  And  he  draws  vivid  pictures 
for  them  of  what  a  natural  home  for  game  are  the  Southern 
mountains,  and  the  Catskills  and  the  Adirondacks,  and  the 
far-off  mountain  ranges  of  the  West. 


174 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


He  makes  It  all  very  clear  to  them,  and  at  last,  foreigners 
as  they  are,  they  begin  to  see  why  it  is  that  America's  game 
is  going  much  faster  even  than  her  forests.    The  old  farmer 


Forty  years  ago  there  were  five  million 

makes  them  understand  how  the  zone  of  gameless,  almost 
birdless,  country  is  w^idening  year  by  year  around  the  towns 
under  the  onslaught  of  those  who  measure  their  sport  wholly 
by  the  number  of  what  they  kill. 


A  moose  at  bay 


/'liinu  //.I  iiank  /■'.  Lirhi^ 


WILD    LIFE 


175 


And  as  the  old  farmer  leads  them  about  the  United  States 
they  see  through  his  eyes  the  passing  of  the  birds  and  the 
woods  creatures,  under  the  merciless  fire,  in  season  and  out 
of  season,  of  countless  rifles  and  shotguns  with  irrespon- 
sible men  and  boys  behind  them. 

This  old  farmer  does  not  lack  for  figures,  and  some  of 
them  stagger  his  hearers.     He  tells  them  that  forty  years 


A  wild  goat  at  home 


Photo  by  Frank  F.  Liebig 


ago  there  were  not  less  than  five  million  wild  buffalo  on  the 
Western  plains.  To-day,  all  we  have  left  are  a  few  hundred 
raised  in  parks  and  zoos,  and  a  few  hundred  more  kept  semi- 
wild  at  public  or  private  expense  in  the  West.  He  teils  them 
that  in  six  of  the  Northeastern  States  alone  about  thirty-five 
thousand  deer  are  killed  each  year. 

Then  he  goes  on  to  talk  of  the  value  of  America's  wild 
life  as  a  material  resource,  apart  from  the  health  anci  sport 
to  be  had  in  hunting  it.  Again  he  has  some  surprising  fig- 
ures. The  present  yearly  value,  he  says,  of  the  furs  taken 
from  mink,  otter,  martin,  beaver,  muskrat,  and  other  fur- 


176 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


bearing  animals,  including  what  is  sent  abroad  and  the  still 
larger  quantity  used  at  home,  is  between  fifteen  and  twenty 
million  dollars. 

He  explains  that  although  the  total  value  of  the  game 


PlioSu  by  Frank  /•".  Liebig 

A  bear  swimming  a  stream 

killed  tor  tood  in  the  United  States  each  year  is  not  yet 
known,  the  venison  used  in  one  season  in  the  six  North- 
eastern States  he  spoke  ot  is  worth  more  than  a  million  dol- 
lars. He  tells  them  that,  while  the  requirement  tor  the  pur- 
chase of  a  hunting  license  trom  the  State  bv  those  who  wish 
to  kill  game  in  America  is  not  yet  general,  the  sale  of  hunting 
licenses    already    yiekls    about    three    million    dollars    every 


WILD    LIFE 


177 


year.  He  calls  attention  to  a  no  less  important  re\'enue 
from  game  which  lies  In  the  attraction  it  offers  to  visitors. 
in  the  State  of  Maine  alone  more  than  a  million  dollars  are 
spent  each  year  by  fishermen  and  hunters. 


IVIr.  Eugene  S.  Bruce  and  his  bear.  Mr.  Bruce  caught  this  cub 
with  his  hands,  in  the  California  mountains.  It  is  now  in  the 
Washington  Zoo. 

Predatory  Animals  Cost  Us  Dearly. 

But,  as  the  farmer  says  in  substance,  there  is  another 
side  to  this  question.  The  United  States  is  not  only  suffer- 
ing already  from  the  lack  of  useful  game  animals  which 
its  people  have  destroyed  by  wasteful  use,  but  from  the 
abundance  of  those  animals  which  are  harmful  as  well  as 
useless.  The  need  to  maintain  and  increase  the  supply  of 
valuable  game  birds  and  animals  is  little  greater  than  the 
need  to  exterminate  those  which  prey  on  crops  or  stock. 


178  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

In  the  West,  predatory  animals,  among  which  wolves, 
mountain  lions,  and  coyotes  are  the  worst,  destroy  every 
year  ahout  fifteen  million  dollars'  worth  of  cattle,  horses, 
and  sheep.  In  Wyoming  alone  the  loss  Is  about  one  million 
dollars  a  year.  So  heavy  is  the  damage  that  nearly  every 
western  state  offers  bounties  —  sometimes  as  high  as  twenty 
dollars  for  a  wolf  —  for  each  of  the  wild  animals  killed, 
which  prey  upon  stock.  But  the  most  effective  way,  as 
well  as  the  cheapest,  of  getting  rid  of  these  predatory 
animals  is  the  way  followed  by  the  United  States  Forest 
Service,  which  hires  men  to  do  nothing  else  but  kill  them. 

So  much  for  the  big  fellows,  but  there  are  others  as 
bad.  We  have  all  seen  prairie  dogs  in  a  zoo,  and  quaint, 
harmless-looking  little  creatures  they  are.  One  would  not 
be  likely  to  accuse  them  of  laying  waste  thousands  of  square 
miles.  But  it  takes  only  about  thirty  of  them  to  eat  as  much 
grass  as  one  sheep,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  to  eat  as  much 
as  a  cow.  How  many  of  them  there  are  nobody  knows,  be- 
cause their  colonies  or  "  dog  towns,"  as  they  call  them  in  the 
West,  cover  many  million  acres. 

There  Is  one  dog  town  in  Texas  which  is  over  two  hun- 
dred miles  long  and  from  one  hundred  to  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  wide.  This  is  about  twenty-five  thousand  square 
miles  of  colony,  and  there  are  within  it  an  average  of  at  least 
twenty-five  prairie  dogs  to  each  acre.  If  you  are  good  at 
mathematics  you  might  work  out  how  many  prairie  dogs 
there  are  in  this  "  dog  town  "  alone,  and  when  you  get 
through  you  will  Wnd  it  is  somewhere  about  four  hundred 
million.  In  the  same  state  of  Texas,  prairie  dogs  consume 
all  the  forage  upon  land  which,  if  the  "  dogs  "  were  not 
there,  would  feed  about  one  and  a  half  million  cattle.  So 
you  see  that  for  the  West  as  a  whole  the  prairie  dog  is  a 
good  deal  of  a  problem,  even  If  there  Is  n't  much  of  him 
individually. 


WILD    LIFE 


179 


Kansas  used  to  have  two  and  a  half  million  acres  upon 
which  prairie  dogs  reigned  supreme,  and  all  the  other  West- 
ern States  have  their  full  share.  In  1902  Kansas  got  tired  of 
it  and  made  war  on  the  prairie  dogs  everywhere.  The  war 
lasted  five  years.  It  cost  eighty-five  thousand  dollars,  which 
was  raised  by  taxes  and  spent  in  the  purchase  of  poison. 
The  result  was  that  the  prairie  dogs  were  destroyed  on  two 
million  acres,  at  a  cost  of  about  four  cents  an  acre. 


#' 


'  %. 


Not  much  of  him  individually 

Then  there  are  the  ground  squirrels,  the  pocket  gophers, 
and  the  field  mice,  which  together  do  more  harm  than  the 
prairie  dogs.  The  best  estimate  to  be  had  of  the  damage 
done  by  all  these  little  creatures,  including  rats  and  mice, 
in  the  United  States  each  year  is  the  tidy  sum  of  ninety- 
five  million  dollars.  The  insurance  people  who  deal  in  care- 
fully recorded  facts,  estimate  that  of  the  average  loss  each 
year  in  the  destruction  of  buildings  by  fire  due  to  defective 
wires  for  electric  lights,  a  large  part  can  be  charged  directly 
to  the  gnawing  of  the  wires  by  rats  and  mice. 

But  to  return  to  game,  and  before  we  leave  it,  let  us  go 
a  little  farther  and  see  what  the  general  outlook  is  here  in 
America.  It  is  not  quite  so  hopeless  as  the  terrible  waste  of 
wiki  life  would  lead  us  to  believe. 


I  So 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


In  their  attitude  towards  game  Americans  fall  Into  three 
classes:  those  who  are  as  yet  indifferent  to  the  waste  of  It, 
those  few  who  stand  for  preservation  without  use,  and  the 
growing  number  who  are  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  need 
for  using  the  game  without  destroying  it.     The  Indifference 


An  old  buffalo  bull 


Fkoto  by  Chailci  D.  Wahotl 


of  the  first  class,  which  is  still  the  largest,  arises  from  many 
causes,  chief  among  which  is  ignorance  of  the  vast  im- 
portance of  game  as  a  resource.  It  is  the  same  careless 
indifference  which  those  must  oxcrcome  who  stri\e  for  the 
wise  use  of  the  forest,  the  rivers,  and  the  minerals.  In  cer- 
tain Important  respects  this  iiuliffcrcnce  Is  tiie  most  serious 
enemy  to  anv  kinti  of  national  thrift. 

I  Ills  inci'tia  towards  the  right  use  of  the  game  Is  growing 
steadily  less  each  year,  as  people  are  taught  to  see  what  the 


WILD    LIFE 


i8i 


terrible  waste  of  wild  life  means  to  all  citizens  and  to  the 
nation.  Men  like  Dimock,  Shiras,  Hornaday,  Merriam, 
Henshaw,  and  Chapman,  and  many  organizations,  like  the 
United  States  Biological  Survey,  the  National  Association 
of  Audubon  Societies,  the  Camp  Fire  Club,  and  the  Boone 


Photo  by  Julian  A.  Dimock 

True  sport.     The  tarpon  has  better  than  an  even  chance 

and  Crockett  Club  are  doing  pioneer  work  in  the  public  ser- 
vice in  this  great  held. 

On  the  other  side  there  are,  as  in  the  case  of  the  forests, 
people  who  are  not  indifferent  to  the  waste  of  game,  but  so 
enthusiastic  for  its  preservation  that  some  of  them  would 
go  so  far  as  to  make  the  woods  creatures  immune  from  any- 
thing more  deadly  than  the  camera,  and  would  thereby  de- 
stroy the  legitimate  use  of  game  for  food  and  the  no  less 
legitimate  sport  of  hunting. 


l82 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


Between  these  two  extremes  are  those  men  who  see  the 
sentimental  side  of  game  preservation  without  exaggeration, 
and  who  also  see  the  side  of  use  in  its  true  proportion.  These 
men  stand  \igorously  for  the  complete  protection  of  cer- 
tain birds  and  animals  which  are  of  little  use  when  killed, 
but  which  are  of  incalculable  value  in  making  the  forest  and 


A  fine  mountain  sheep 

fields  more  beautiful  and  more  interesting.  They  stand  no 
less  vigorously  for  the  preserxation  of  this  great  resource, 
not  by  locking  it  up  against  use,  but  by  using  it  wisely. 


PVe  Can  AU  Help  Save  the  Game. 

We  can  help  above  all  by  learning  to  know  the  habits 
of  the  woods  creatures,  and  what  is  needed  for  them  to 
maintain  or  increase  their  numbers.  7  he  more  wc  learn 
about  the  wonders  ot  the  wild  life  which  pulses  under  fur 
and  feathers  and  pelt,   so   much  the  less  likely  are  we  to 


WILD    LIFE 


183 


become  what  are  justly  called  "game  hogs"  —  men  who 
kill  game  in  quantity  far  beyond  their  own  needs,  simply 


J^  \k 


Photo  by  George  Shiras,  3rd 

The  elk  greatly  need  better  protection 

to  be  photographed  beside  it,  or  from  the  unworthy  desire 
for  mere  slaughter. 

The  true  sportsman  is  he  who  gives  his  game  a  fair 
chance,  and  kills  only  what  he  can  use  without  waste.  Such 
a  man  does  not  have  to  move  on  like  the  bonanza  farmer 
after  he  has  mined  the  soil,  or  like  the  wasteful  lumberman 
who  destroys  the  forest,  but  he  so  husbands  the  wild  crea- 
tures that  he  may  hunt  successfully  over  the  same  ground 
year  after  year. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE    RIVERS 

WHILE  we  may  not  have  been  In  a  great  forest, 
or  down  in  a  mine,  or  have  lived  on  a  farm,  all 
of  us  have  seen  a  river.  Nearly  every  boy  has 
learned  to  know  well  a  part  of  some  river.  He  has  waded 
it  first  and  had  many  a  swim  in  It  when  he  grew  bigger.  He 
has  Hshed  it  and  poled  or  rowed  or  paddled  a  boat  over  it, 
and  the  memory  of  Its  pools  and  Its  ripples,  Its  stretches  of 
placid  water  which  make  the  good  swimming  holes,  and  its 
shaded  banks  which  are  so  hard  to  leave,  will  remain  with 
him  as  long  as  the  memory  of  home  itself. 

A  man  who  knew  how  to  put  truths  into  words  once  said 
that  we  love  to  sit  by  a  fire  because  it  Is  a  ll\e  thing  in  a 
dead  room.  A  river  attracts  us  for  much  the  same  reason. 
It  Is  never  still;  and  the  sight  and  sound  of  moving  water, 
whether  it  be  the  babble  of  a  trout  stream  or  the  roar  of  an 
angry  sea,  has  a  stronger  and  a  more  constant  charm  than 
any  other  held  by  the  great  world  out  of  doors. 

One   more  Journey. 

There  could  be  no  more  Interesting  journey  than  to  follow 
a  great  river  from  Its  source  to  Its  mouth.  Why  should  we 
not  take  this  last  trip  together?  It  must  not  be  an  eastern 
river,  but  one  in  the  West,  where  every  drop  of  running 
water  Is  precious  —  often  more  precious  than   either  land 

184 


Our  river  first  drinks  from  melting  snows 


1 86  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

or  timber.  Why  should  we  not  follow  down  one  of  the 
rivers  of  California,  which  are  useful  to  man  every  step  of 
the  way? 

It  takes  some  hard  climbing  to  reach  our  river's  source. 
Its  life  begins  in  the  high  Sierras,  which  are  among  the  most 
beautiful  of  mountains.  They  are  not  like  the  Rockies, 
where  the  heart  is  so  awed  by  the  tremendous  sweep  of 
slopes  clothed  in  the  dark  green  of  the  western  yellow  pine 
that  we  turn  with  relief  to  the  valleys,  where  streams  and 
smooth  land  contours  hold  the  comforting  sense  of  possible 
habitation.  There  is  the  same  contrast  between  these  tower- 
ing mountains  and  the  pleasant  valleys  as  between  the  roar 
and  surge  of  great  seas  and  the  murmur  of  a  brook.  One 
may  admire  and  enjoy  both,  but  the  brook  like  the  valley  is 
the  best  to  live  near. 

The  Sierras  are  bold  and  full  of  character,  but  their  soil 
and  climate  are  kindlier  than  those  of  the  Rockies  and  their 
forests  are  much  more  varied  and  more  cheerful.  On  the 
lower  slopes,  where  summer  sunshine  streams  down  the 
whole  year  round,  grow  shrub-like  trees  of  many  kinds, 
some  of  them  with  glossy  leaves  and  brilliant  blossoms  and 
fruit.  This  hill  country,  which  lies  just  east  of  the  high 
mountains,  is  like  a  park,  with  its  rolling  hills  and  rich  shrub- 
bery and  flowers  and  pleasant  glades.  Deer  are  still  plenti- 
ful in  parts  of  it,  and  so  are  the  crested  California  (juail. 

Our  river  first  drinks  from  melting  snows,  and  then  of 
rain  water  stored  by  the  forest  and  given  out  slowly  and  un- 
ceasingly from  a  multitude  of  springs.  Other  streams  run- 
ning down  the  side  valleys  of  its  great  watershed  help  to 
swell  it;  and  what,  a  few  miles  back,  was  a  brook  which 
a  child  could  step  across  is  now  a  iHishing  trout  stream, 
which  breaks  its  long  journey  by  loitering  in  the  ripples, 
resting  in  deep  pools,  or  making  up  for  lost  time  in  hurrying 
rapids,  and  now  and  then  by  a  watertall. 


Resting  in  deep  pools 


1 88  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

The  First  Sign  of  Use. 

So  far  we  have  seen  no  sign  that  man  is  using  the  river. 
We  see  brilliant  trout  flashing  from  the  shelter  of  one  pool 
to  another  so  fast  that  the  eye  can  scarcely  follow.  But 
beyond  the  fish  and  pleasant  visions  of  a  slender  rod  and  a 
full  creel,  the  thought  of  using  this  riv'er  does  not  occur 
to  us. 

Now  we  hear  the  roar  from  a  long  chain  of  rapids; 
and  from  the  bank  we  see  the  steep  pathway  down  which 
the  river  surges  for  several  hundred  yards.  The  stream 
which  we  could  have  swum  or  waded  in  its  placid  reaches 
just  above,  is  no  longer  in  a  mood  for  trifling.  No  boat, 
nor  man  afoot  or  mounted,  could  live  in  these  rapids.  Here 
is  the  rush  and  roar  of  angry,  hurrying  water,  lashing  itself 
into  frenzy  against  the  boulders  which  oppose  it,  sliding 
over  smooth,  steep  ledges  with  a  sinister,  hidden  strength, 
swirling  among  great  rocks  in  its  hungry,  fruitless  search 
for  new  outlets,  and  filling  its  narrow  valley  with  a  voice  no 
longer  gentle,  but  full  of  purpose  and  of  power. 

But  what  is  that  dark,  straight  line  we  see  leading  from 
the  right  bank,  at  so  slight  an  angle  that  the  distance  be- 
tween it  and  the  stream  widens  very  gradually?  As  we  look 
closer  we  see  that  it  is  a  great  pipe  line  which  leads  right 
into  the  river  bed  at  the  head  of  the  rapids.  It  must  carry 
a  great  quantity  of  water,  for  the  pipe  is  at  least  three  feet 
through,  and  where  it  juts  into  the  ri\cr  it  is  entirely  sub- 
merged behind  a  short  stone  dam  which  diverts  the  current 
towards  it. 

Tt  is  clear  that  not  only  have  men  been  here,  but  that  they 
must  have  had  much  money  to  spend  and  ha\e  seen  a  chance 
to  make  more  by  spending  it.  To  dig  and  blast  this  narrow 
trail  tor  the  pipe  line  which  runs  down  hill  just  enough  to 
keep  the  water  in  it  mo\"ing,  must  have  cost  a  lot  of  money, 


THE    RIVERS 


189 


as  must  the  great  pipe  itself  whose  joints  are  fitted  so  tightly 
together  that  hardly  a  drop  escapes. 

What  does  it  all  mean?  It  means  water  power.  The 
rapids  are  the  source  of  it,  the  pipe  line  is  the  first  step 
towards  its  development.     Developed  water  power  means 


It  is  a  great  pipe  line 

electricity,  and  electricity  means  lights  in  our  streets  and  in 
our  houses,  swift-moving  street  cars  and  humming  factories, 
and  progress,  ease,  comfort,  and  development  as  well  as 
money  for  the  men  who  produce  it. 

It  is  easy  going  now,  for  we  follow  the  trail  along  the 
pipe  line  and  are  soon  above  the  foot  of  the  rapids,  with  the 
river  a  hundred  feet  below  us.  Another  few  hundred  feet 
and  the  pipe  line  turns  abruptly  downwards  at  a  sharp  angle 
and  disappears  as  it  enters  a  building  at  the  foot  of  the  hill, 


190 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


and  right  upon  the  river  bank.  This  is  the  power-house, 
where  the  pressure  of  the  stream  of  water  carried  in  the  pipe 
is  used  to  turn  great  silent  engines  whose  product  is  elec- 
tricity. Having  done  its  work,  the  water  gushes  out  on  the 
other  side  of  the  building  and  joins  the  hurrying  river  again. 
Leading  from  the  power-house  are  several  large  copper 


The  power-house 

wires;  and  a  hundred  feet  away  we  see  a  metal  tower  about 
fifty  feet  high,  to  the  top  of  which  the  wires  are  stretched. 
This  tower  is  four-sided  and  looks  much  like  the  masts  used 
on  modern  battleships. 

If  we  were  high  in  the  air  above  and  if  our  eyes  were 
strong  enough,  we  would  see  a  sixty-mile  chain  of  these 
towers,  about  two  hundred  feet  apart,  bearing  the  gleaming 
copper  wires  which  carry  the  electricity  to  the  cities,  towns, 
and  men  who  buy  it.  I'eeding  into  the  main  Ime,  which  is 
called  a  "  power  transmission  line,"  because  it  carries  elec- 


THE    RIVERS 


191 


tricity  from  where  it  Is  made  to  where  it  is  used,  we  would 
see  the  wires  from  many  other  power-houses  along  the 
river.  Some  of  these  depend,  as  did  the  one  we  saw,  upon 
a  pipe  line  leading  straight  from  the  river  itself,  others  upon 
great  dams  in  which  water  is  stored  and  from  which  it  can 
be  led  in  much  larger  volume  than  direct  from  the  bed  of 
the  stream.     And  straight  as  the  crow  flies,  across  moun- 


^'T*^/       y         i^ 


Others  depend  on  dams  for  the  storage  of  water 

tain  and  canyon,  desert  anci  fruitful,  irrigated  farm,  leads 
the  transmission  line,  so  that  there  may  be  the  least  possible 
loss  of  power  during  its  long  journey. 

Leaving  the  mountains,  the  use  of  the  power  begins. 
Settlements  and  towns  in  the  great  valley  of  the  San  Joaquin 
take  part  of  it,  but  most  of  it  is  carried  still  further  to  cities 
along  the  Pacific  Coast,  where  coal  and  wood  are  too  ex- 
pensive for  use  in  generating  power.  The  nearest  coal  to 
Southern  California,  In  important  quantity.  Is  hundreds  of 
miles   away,   in  Washington   and   New   Mexico.     There   is 


192 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


very  little  wood  between  the  coast  and  the  high  Sierras. 
The  industrial  development  and  the  very  existence  of  great 
and  prosperous  cities  like  Los  Angeles,  which  now  has 
more  than  two  hundred  thousand  people,  depend  absolutely 
upon  the  supply  of  electricity  produced  from  the  streams  in 
the  mountains. 


The  existence  of  Los  Angeles  depends  on  water  power 

Before  we  see  the  other  uses  of  our  river,  let  us  think  for 
a  moment  what  water  power  means  to  our  country  —  this 
silent,  latent  force  which  is  hidden  in  every  waterlall  and 
every  chain  of  rapids,  and  some  of  which  even  slumbers  in 
the  slow-mo\ing  current  of  great  rivers.  Fifty  years  ago 
the  development  of  electricity  from  water  power  was  en- 
tircK  unknown.  To-day  over  five  million  horse  power  is 
already  dexeloped  in  the  United  States.  1  he  amount  of 
water  power  not  yet  developed  and  whose  development  is 
practicable  at  reasonable  cost  is  about  thirty-seven  million 
horse  power. 


THE    RIVERS 


193 


W.  J.  JMcGee,  a  man  who  knows  the  land  we  live  in  as 
few  others  do  and  who  sees  with  a  power  of  vision  which 
reaches  far  beyond  the  immediate  future,  speaks  of  the  pos- 
sibilities of  our  undeveloped  water  powers  in  these  words: 

"  The  thirty-seven  million  horse  power  to-day  available 
exceeds  our  entire  mechanical  power  now  in  use  and  would 


Power  is  hidden  in  every  waterfall 

operate  every  mill,  drive  every  spindle,  propel  every  train 
and  boat,  and  light  every  city,  town,  and  village  in  the 
country." 


Jflio  mil  Control  the  JFater  Powers? 

Those  of  us  who  li\'e  to  be  old,  or  even  to  be  middle- 
aged,  will  see  much  of  this  power  harnessed  and  used.  The 
time  will  come  when  our  material  success  will  in  large  part 
depend    upon    the    attitude    of    the    men    who    control    the 


194  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

water  powers.  We  will  need  their  product  and  we  may  be 
forced  to  pay  an  unfair  price.  This  time  is  here  already 
for  some  of  us,  as  in  Southern  California  and  in  the  South- 
eastern States. 

A  great  struggle  is  nov/  going  on  and  is  not  yet  fully  won, 
to  get  laws  passed  and  honestly  enforced  which  will  ensure 
that  the  water  powers  still  owned  by  the  people  in  the  public 
domain  shall  be  developed  and  used  in  their  interest  instead 
of  in  the  interest  of  a  few  individuals  and  a  few  corpora- 
tions. The  struggle  between  the  American  people  and  those 
men  or  groups  of  men  who  seek  to  get  unregulated  control 
of  the  water  powers  which  belong  to  the  people  is  the  kind 
of  struggle  in  which  every  good  American,  man  or  boy, 
should  take  an  earnest  interest.  It  is  a  struggle  which  has 
many  phases  and  which  involves  practical  questions  of  law 
and  its  administration,  and  of  justice  to  the  power  companies 
as  well  as  to  the  people.  But  in  principle  it  invoKes  the 
question  whether  the  American  people  shall  continue  to  hold 
title  to  their  own  property  in  water  powers,  and  lease  them 
for  development  under  terms  which  require  a  fair  payment 
for  their  use  and  a  reasonable  price  for  the  electricity  pro- 
duced, or  whether  this  great  resource  shall  slip  from  the 
grasp  of  the  people  into  the  clutching  hands  of  the  great 
interests. 

So  after  all,  the  question  of  who  shall  control  the  water 
powers  —  the  people  or  the  interests  —  is  a  part  of  the  still 
greater  question,  whether  the  people  or  the  interests  shall 
be  master  in  this  country. 

Fifty  years  ago  this  nation  cleansed  itself  at  heavy  cost  of 
one  form  of  slavery.  To-day  a  great  struggle  is  going  on 
against  slavery  of  another  and  a  no  less  evil  kind.  If  the 
control  of  forests,  water  powers,  and  minerals  should  pass 
much  further  into  a  few  hands — and  they  have  already 
passed  too  far  that  way  —  then  every  one  of  us,  no  matter 


THE    RIVERS  195 

where  we  live  or  what  we  do,  will  lose  a  part  of  that  free- 
dom of  opportunity  which  is   our  birthright. 

We  need  the  great  power  companies  with  their  vast  re- 
sources and  their  general  willingness  to  spend  these  re- 
sources quickly  and  effectively  in  harnessing  the  streams  for 
use.  Without  them  we  would  be  indiviciually  as  helpless  to 
develop  water  power  as  were  the  early  settlers.  The  power 
companies,  in  their  turn  earn,  and  they  should  have,  a  good 
profit  from  the  sale  of  the  power  they  develop  in  return  for 
their  risk  and  their  large  investment  of  capital.  But  when 
they  exact  more  than  that  they  rob  instead  of  earn. 

Remember  that  this  great  issue  concerns  us  all.  While 
most  of  us  have  been  slowly  awakening  to  the  tremendous 
value  of  the  undeveloped  power  in  the  streams,  the  great 
power  interests  have  been  both  awake  and  at  work.  For 
ten  years  or  more  their  engineers  have  been  searching  for 
favorable  spots  on  the  banks  of  streams  below  falls  or 
rapids,  where  power-houses  might  be  built.  This  search  has 
been  skilful,  diligent,  and  successful.  Power  sites  have  been 
acquired  by  the  companies  often  far  in  advance  of  any  im- 
mediate intention  to  develop  them  —  in  some  cases  simply 
to  withhold  them  from  development  and  thus  stifle  compe- 
tition and  maintain  or  increase  the  already  generally  ex- 
cessive cost  of  water  power. 

Already  over  California,  over  the  mountain  region  of  the 
South,  as  well  as  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  transmission 
lines  from  the  power-houses  of  the  great  companies,  like  the 
tentacles  of  a  giant  cuttlefish,  are  feeling  their  way  into  the 
country  around.  And  like  the  cuttlefish,  these  power  com- 
panies, when  their  methods  are  questioned  or  attacked,  hide 
themselves  in  waters  darkened  by  the  ink  of  their  own  argu- 
ments. Thev  clamor  franticallv  for  the  more  respectful 
treatment  of  invested  capital;  they  point  vehemently  at  the 
great  resource  developed  by  their  own  initiative  and  by  their 


a 


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a, 

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3 


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a 

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C/3 


THE    RIVERS 


197 


great  expenditure;  they  accuse  those  who  oppose  them  of 
the  wish  to  check  all  development ;  and  they  take  final  refuge 
in  the  murk  of  technicalities  in  defending  the  fairness  of 
their  charges  for  power.     But  the  fight  is  on,  and  the  issue 


The  walrus  are  being  killed  off 


Pholo  bv  Dobbs 


is  plain.  It  is  probable  that  an  aroused  public  sentiment  will 
check  the  further  spread  of  unregulated  control  of  water 
power  before  it  reaches  the  stage  of  absolute  monopoly. 


Other  Great   Uses. 

We  have  seen  one  great  use  of  this  river,  as  of  all  other 
fast-fiowing  rivers  in  the  United  States.  But  if  we  had  fol- 
lowed its  course  instead  of  the  power  lines,  we  would  have 


I9S 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


discovered  another  great  form  of  use.  Sometimes  straight 
from  the  river  itself  lead  the  conduits  and  ditches  carrying 
water  for  irrigation.  Sometimes  water  taken  from  the 
streams  to   the  power-houses  never   returns  to   the   stream 


A  female  seal  and  her  pup 

again,  but  after  its  work  in  the  power-house  is  finished  is 
led  on  to  perform  a  final  service  in  watering  cultivated  lands. 
All  along  this  river  its  waters  are  put  to  the  most  natural 
and  important  use  of  all  —  to  keep  the  life  m  man  and  beast. 
In  the  mountains  the  deer  and  other  forest  creatures  steal 
down   to   drink  of  its  cool   waters,   and  the   ri\er  is  a  con- 


THE    RIVERS 


199 


stant  source  of  existence   and  cleanliness  to  towns  as  well 
as  to  men. 

And  so  our  river  trav^els  on  until  it  becomes  a  part  of  that 
resource  which  belongs  to  all  the  world  —  the  sea.  If  we 
had  time  to  travel  up  and  down  the  East  coast  and  then 
the   Pacific   coast   even   to    far-off   Alaska,   we   might   learn 


Where  thousands  ran  before.     Can  you  find  the  leaping  salmon.'' 


something  of  what  a  great  resource  is  this  —  of  the  oyster 
beds,  and  of  the  seal  herds  on  the  lonely  islands  in  Behring 
Sea,  and  the  great  salmon  fisheries;  and  we  would  find  for 
each  of  these  and  many  other  products  of  the  ocean,  how 
men  have  wasted  them  and  how  they  are  only  just  beginning 
to  realize  that  the  waste  must  stop.  We  would  learn  how 
the  walrus  are  being  killed  off,  and  how  through  senseless 
slaughter  the  seal  herd  has  dwindled,  not  only  on  the  breed- 
ing grounds,  but  in  the  sea  as  well ;  how  the  silver  salmon 
run  now  by  hundreds  where  thousands  ran  before;  and  how 
the  oyster  beds  have  been  so  far  depleted  that  both  private 


.^ 


ni 


^^ 


m   -» 


o 


-3 


( 


C3    C 
C    u 


1) 

T   O 
-      G 

^"3 


OS 
O 


rt 


CO 

Q, 

D 

O 
i_ 

o 


o 
^ 


H 


THE    RIVERS 


20I 


owners  as  well  as  several  states  now  plant  oysters  to  increase 
their  yield,  even  as  farmers  sow  grass  seed  on  a  scanty  sod. 

Rivers  are  Roads. 

So  far  we  have  found  that  our  river  is  used  in  three  great 
ways  —  for  power,   for  irrigation,   and   for  domestic  uses. 


Tonging  for  oysters 


There  is  still  another  great  form  of  use  for  which  many 
rivers  are  suitable,  —  navigation. 

We  have  in  the  United  States  about  twenty-four  thousand 
miles  of  water  courses  which  are  deep  and  wide  enough  to 
carry  boats.  Like  the  settlers,  we  are  coming  to  realize 
that  many  of  our  rivers  are  natural  roads  to  travel  over; 
but  where  the  settlers  or  the  Indians  used  the  river  to  carry 
only  themselves  in  their  birch-bark  canoes,  we  use  the  nav- 
igable rivers  as  highways  for  barges  loaded  with  coal,  lum- 
ber, ore,  and  grain.     They  are  of  vast  importance  for  this 


202 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


purpose  both  as  carriers  and  as  a  means  of  regulating  the 
cost  of  railroad  traffic.  Nothing  raises  the  cost  of  anything 
so  greatly  as  the  monopoly  of  it,  and  some  of  the  railroads 
have  taken  unfair  advantage  of  their  monopoly  of  trans- 
portation.    That  is  the  chief   reason  why  there   is  such   a 


An  o}ster  stunted  by  mussels  which  eat  its  food 


great  and  strong  mo\'ement  afoot  to  increase  the  navigable 
distances  in  our  rivers  as  well  as  their  capacitv  to  carry  big 
boats.  1  his  is  done  by  dredging  them  and  ilcepcning  them, 
by  building  canals  to  join  them  with  each  other,  and  by  ter- 
minals, docks,  and  freight-handling  machinery. 

So  these  are  the  four  great  uses  of  moxing  water:  for 
power,  for  liomestic  use,  for  irrigation,  and  tor  na\igation. 
A  great  fact  which  we  arc  just  coining  to  reali/e,  and  which 


THE    RIVERS 


203 


marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  and  vastly  more  productive 
handling  of  our  rivers,  is  that  all  these  uses  are  harmonious, 
and  if  rightly  administered  fit  closely  and  without  friction 
one  into  the  other.  Not  only  are  these  four  uses  of  any 
river  harmonious,  but  the  same  influences,  good  or  bad, 
affect  them  all. 


A    planted  oyster  shell 

If  a  river  is  muddy  and  filthy,  not  only  is  the  water  unfit 
to  drink,  but  it  can  seldom  be  held  profitably  in  irrigation 
dams.  The  sediment  which  settles  from  muddy  water  soon 
fills  up  a  reserv'oir  and  the  cost  of  cleaning  it  out  often  be- 
comes so  high  that  it  does  not  pay  to  do  it.  And  muddy 
water  silts  up  storage  reservoirs  for  water  power  no  less 
than  it  silts  up  irrigation  dams.      Muddy  water  in  a   river 


204  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

interferes  with  navigation  for  the  same  reason,  and  our 
Government  has  already  spent  two  hundred  and  fifty  mil- 
lions of  dollars  in  dredging  the  silt  out  of  the  channels  at 
the  mouth  and  along  the  lower  reaches  of  navigable  streams. 
Forest  destruction  at  the  headwaters  put  the  silt  in  the  river 
beds,  and  only  the  restoration  of  the  forest  will  prevent  the 
continuance  of  it. 

Floods  and  the  low  water  which  follows  them  do  no  less 
harm  than  silt.  A  chain  is  no  stronger  than  its  weakest  link. 
The  usefulness  of  a  river  is  measured  not  by  the  high  water 
following  the  rains,  but  by  the  steadiness  of  its  flow  through- 
out the  year.  Very  low  water  means  much  more  than  inter- 
ference with  town  and  city  water  supplies.  It  means  lack  of 
water  in  irrigation  and  other  storage  reservoirs,  which  in 
turn  means  uncertainty  of  supply  for  crops  to  drink  or  for 
the  manufacture  of  water  power.  Sometimes  it  means  the 
total  failure  of  the  power  or  irrigation  project,  with  disap- 
pointment and  great  loss  and  even  suffering  to  many. 

When  we  come  to  those  lower  portions  of  great  rivers, 
deep  and  wide  enough  to  carry  boats  loaded  with  freight 
from  the  place  where  it  is  produced  to  those  who  use  it, 
then  we  find  again  how  floods  impair  or  even  destroy  a 
river's  usefulness.  7\he  value  of  a  river  for  navigation  is 
measured  by  its  depth  of  water  which  is  in  turn  a  measure 
of  the  size  of  the  boats  it  may  carry;  and  if  that  depth 
varies  greatly  during  the  year,  then  again  there  is  uncertainty 
and  interruption  and  loss  and  even  absolute  disuse  as  the 
result. 

A  river  is  a  unit  from  its  source  to  its  mouth  —  a  unit 
physically,  a  unit  intiustrially,  and  a  unit  in  its  contribution 
to  the  public  welfare,  and  it  should  be  handled  as  such.  Up 
to  the  present  we  have  treated  a  river  as  if  it  were  a  house 
with  niany  carpenters  at  work  on  it  at  once,  each  following 
different  plans  and  without  a  head  carpenter  to  guide  them. 


THE    RIVERS  205 

The  result  is  seldom  economical  or  useful.  What  we  need 
above  all  is  a  comprehensive  plan  for  developing  all  the  uses 
of  all  great  rivers  to  the  fullest  possible  extent.  Only  when 
we  have  it  and  when  we  follow  it,  will  we  stop  playing  at 
cross  purposes  and  wasting  money  and  getting  poor  results. 


CHAPTER    IX 

WHAT   THIS    MEANS    TO    US 

A  GOOD  many  people  think  of  this  nation  and  its  wel- 
fare as  having  very  little  influence  over  their  indi- 
vidual lives  and  fortunes;  but  whatever  affects  other 
people  generally  affects  each  ol  us  as  well. 

The  Merchant's  Son. 

Suppose  you  were  the  son  of  a  merchant  in  a  small  town, 
and  that  your  father  had  built  up  a  successful  business  by 
running  a  general  store.  He  began  when  the  town  was  only 
a  village,  and  the  business  grew  quickly  like  the  town.  There 
were  many  customers  and  they  liked  to  buy  from  your  father 
because  he  sold  honest  goods  at  fair  prices.  They  bought 
more  and  more  each  year,  because  they  were  prosperous 
people,  or  thought  they  were.  Some  of  them  were  lumber- 
men who  were  making  money  fast  by  cutting  down  the  for- 
ests, and  others  were  farmers  who  were  also  making  money 
by  that  kind  of  farming  which  takes  more  and  more  strength 
from  the  soil  each  year,  and  gives  none  of  it  back. 

The  village  becomes  what  people  call  a  "  boom  "  town. 
New  houses  and  stores  are  built,  pavements  are  laid  in 
streets  which  were  mud  or  dust  before,  electric  lights  and 
street  cars  make  their  appearance,  a  big  theatre  goes  up, 
and  there  are  many  bar-rooms;  and  one  reads  in  the  news- 
papers, of  which  there  are  several  with  headlines  that  seem 
to  get  larger  every  day,  that  a  new  railroad  will  soon  help 
carry  away  the  grain  and  the  lumber. 

206 


WHAT    THIS    MEANS    TO    US  207 

The  time  comes  when  your  father  says:  "You  take  the 
store  now;  I  have  taught  you  all  I  can,  and  I  am  growing 
old,  and  I  want  to  rest  awhile." 

For  a  time  everything  goes  well.  You  are  a  good  busi- 
ness man,  and  people  like  to  see  your  father's  son  behind  the 
counter.  You  even  branch  out  and  put  in  new  lines  of  goods. 
But  a  year  comes  when,  after  you  have  gone  over  your 
books,  you  are  surprised  to  find  that  you  have  done  no  more 
business  than  you  did  the  year  before.  At  the  end  of  the 
next  year  you  find  that  the  business  has  fallen  off  a  little. 
Year  by  year  the  falling  off  goes  on,  and  it  is  harder  and 
harder  to  collect  the  bills  which  people  owe  you.  Those 
who  used  to  be  your  best  customers  not  only  buy  less  now, 
but  they  let  their  accounts  go  unpaid  for  several  months.  It 
worries  you  greatly,  and  you  have  to  give  up  the  plans  to 
build  a  new  and  better  house,  and  to  send  the  oldest  boy 
away  to  school. 

It  begins  to  look  pretty  blue.  You  do  not  feel  that  the 
fault  lies  with  yourself;  your  methods  are  the  same  as 
when  you  were  successful.  You  think  it  all  over  and  you 
decide  to  study  the  whole  thing  out,  and  find  out  what  is 
really  the  trouble. 

What  do  you  find?  That  the  forests,  the  logs  from  which 
filled  the  rivers  full  in  the  early  days,  are  nearly  gone;  that 
the  rich  soil  of  the  farms,  which  produced  wheat  and  corn 
by  the  train  load  at  first,  has  lost  so  much  of  its  strength 
that  now  twenty  bushels  an  acre  is  a  good  crop  from  the 
ground  which  used  to  yield  two  or  three  times  as  much. 

You  talk  the  matter  over  with  other  merchants,  and  they 
tell  you  the  same  story  you  tell  them.  Some  of  them  have 
already  closed  their  shutters  and  moved  away. 

The  lawyers  and  the  doctors  feel  it.  The  hotels  are  doing 
very  little  business.  The  officers  of  the  new  railroad  which 
was  talked  of  saw  what  would  happen  long  In  advance,  and 


2o8  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

the  railroad  got  no  further  than  the  preliminary  surveys; 
while  the  old  railroad  has  taken  off  several  trains,  and 
raised  its  freight  rates  correspondingly,  for  the  less  a  road 
hauls  the  more  it  must  charge. 

The  "boom  "  tov/n  of  tvi^enty  years"  ago  is  now  a  very 
different  place.  Loafers  line  the  court  house  square.  The 
goods  in  the  store  windows  are  scanty  and  second  rate. 
The  streets  are  dirty  and  nobody  seems  to  care.  Ihe  rail- 
road station  which  useci  to  be  so  lively  is  sadly  changed. 
In  the  old  days  cars  filled  the  sidings,  some  unloading  farm 
and  logging  machinery,  groceries,  seed,  and  dry  goods,  and 
others  taking  on  huge  stacks  of  lumber  and  grain.  To-day 
there  is  so  little  business  that  the  station  agent  has  the  easiest 
job  in  town. 

Everybody  knows  what  is  the  matter  with  the  town  by  this 
time,  from  the  drummer  who  leaves  it  and  swears  never  to 
return,  to  the  workman  in  the  cottages  and  the  business  men 
in  their  offices.     The  town  is  dead. 

This  is  not  a  fairy  story.  There  are  many  such  towns  in 
the  United  States.  There  are  even  some  which  have  been 
abandoned  altogether. 

If  the  yield  of  crops  from  the  farm,  timber  from  the  for- 
ests, or  ore  from  the  mines  falls  off  in  any  locality,  the 
farmers  and  the  lumbermen  and  the  miners  are  not  the  only 
people  who  suffer.     Everybody  else  suffers  too. 

The  Farmer's  Sou. 

What  docs  waste  mean  when  it  is  carried  on  a  little 
farther  from  where  we  live?  I  he  boy  we  are  talking  about 
this  time  is  a  farmer's  son.  His  father  settletl  upon  one 
liuiulrcd  and  sixtv  acres  which  the  Government  gave  him 
forty  years  ago.  1  le  cleared  it,  and  grubbed  out  the  stumps, 
and  put  his  thought  and  strength  for  many  years  into  making 
it  a  home.      i  he  home  was  a  log  cabin  at  first;    but  while 


WHAT    THIS    MEANS    TO    US  209 

the  boy  was  still  small,  a  comfortable  frame  building  took 
its  place. 

By  the  time  the  boy  is  big  enough  to  be  of  some  help  to 
his  father,  the  farm  is  one  of  the  best  for  miles  around; 
and  they  are  all  good  in  that  neighborhood,  for  the  soil  is 
naturally  rich  and  the  farmers  are  thrifty.  The  boy's  father 
had  made  the  soil  still  richer  by  skilful  farming.  He  bought 
good  fertilizers  and  used  them  abundantly.  He  plowed 
deep  and  often;  and  he  changed  the  crops  from  year  to  year, 
so  that  one  crop  helped  to  put  back  what  another  drew  from 
the  land. 

It  was  a  model  farm ;  buildings  in  good  order,  sleek  thor- 
oughbred stock,  and  barns  full  of  hay,  and  corn,  and  clover. 
The  farmer  made  not  only  enough  to  live  on  comfortably, 
but  he  had  a  little  surplus  each  year  which  he  put  into  the 
bank  against  a  rainy  day.  As  the  boy  grew  up  he  became 
more  and  more  trustworthy,  until  the  time  came  when  his 
father  turned  over  the  management  of  the  place  to  him. 

The  boy  is  a  good  farmer  and  he  loves  the  land.  He 
keeps  it  in  good  tilth,  and  the  farm  is  even  better  than  when 
the  father  ran  it,  for  the  son  profits  by  all  the  new  knowledge 
about  farming  which  the  Government  gives  away  for  the 
asking. 

But  somehow  the  bank  account  does  not  grow.  The  farm 
yields  more  than  ever,  the  freight  rates  for  shipping  the 
crops  to  market  are  not  much  higher;  and  while  it  costs 
more  than  it  did  to  live,  it  is  not  enough  to  fully  explain  the 
difference  —  the  real  trouble  lies  with  the  taxes.  Year  after 
year  they  grow  larger.  ' 

Why   Taxes  are  Higher. 

The  farmer  wants  to  give  his  children  all  the  advantages 
possible.  He  does  not  want  them  to  grow  up  ignorant 
simply  because  they  live  in  the  country;    and  year  by  year 


2IO  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

he  is  forced  to  spend  more  for  taxes,  and  that  means  that 
he  has  less  and  less  to  spend  on  educating  his  children.  It 
does  not  seem  fair  and  the  farmer  resents  it.  He  com- 
plains to  the  tax  assessor,  but  he  gets  little  satisfaction;  at 
last  he  finds  a  man  who  tells  him  frankly  where  the  trouble 
really  lies.     This  is  what  the  man  says: 

"  All  you  say  is  true.  Your  taxes  are  higher  than  they 
ought  to  be.  You  and  your  neighbors  are  the  best  farmers 
in  the  State.  You  have  n't  robbed  the  soil;  you  have  made 
it  better  by  farming  it  properly. 

"  If  all  the  farmers  were  like  you  your  taxes  would  be 
lower  instead  of  higher.  But  nearly  all  the  other  farmers 
in  our  State  are  robbing  the  soil  by  overworking  it.  The 
result  is  that  their  land  Is  worth  less  and  less  each  year,  and 
that  less  and  less  Is  produced  from  it.  Taxes  are  something 
that  farmers  and  all  other  people  pay  to  the  State  on  the 
value  of  what  they  own,  and  on  the  value  of  what  they  pro- 
duce, so  that  the  State  may  ha\"e  money  to  pay  for  schools 
and  roads,  and  for  all  the  expenses  of  the  State  government, 
which  enforces  law  and  order  and  gives  everybody  protec- 
tion, and  without  which  we  could  not  get  on.  Each  year  the 
cost  of  running  the  State  Government  gets  higher  and 
higher.  But  the  value  and  the  amount  of  property  in  the 
State  is  not  Increasing  nearly  as  fast  as  the  number  of 
people.  The  result  Is  that  each  man  who  owns  something 
has  to  pay  more  In  taxes  instead  of  less. 

"This  will  go  on  until  more  Is  produced;  then  the  indl- 
\idual  tax  will  be  smaller.  It  is  hard  on  you  because  you 
are  not  responsible.  About  the  best  thing  you  can  do  is  to 
use  your  influence  with  everybody  you  know  to  make  them 
farm  like  you  do.  The  State  Is  using  all  Its  influence  too; 
but  it  Is  a  slow  business." 

So  you  sec  in  the  State,  as  well  as  in  the  town,  we  suffer 
for  the  mistakes  of  our  neighbors. 


WHAT    THIS    MEANS    TO    US  211 

The  Nation  and  the  Government. 

You  can  easily  see  how  we  could  go  on  with  these  ex- 
amples until  we  come  to  the  nation  itself  and  to  the  Govern- 
ment, which  represents  the  nation  and  does  its  will.  The 
Government  seems  a  long  way  off  to  many  of  us,  except  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  or  when  something  else  happens  to  bring 
home  to  us  this  great  power  which  centers  in  Washington, 
and  which  is  beyond  the  power  of  the  governments  of  all  the 
states. 

Of  course  the  Government  has  no  power  except  that  which 
the  people  give  it.  But  one  hundred  million  people  have 
given  it  freely,  and  it  is  a  very  great  power  indeed. 

Every  time  you  see  a  regiment  of  clean-built  regulars 
swinging  along  in  their  khaki  uniforms,  that  means  the  Gov- 
ernment; every  time  you  see  a  great  battleship,  her  steel 
hull  alive  with  guns  and  men,  that  means  the  Government; 
every  time  you  see  a  post-office,  from  the  few  square  feet  of 
mail  boxes  in  the  front  of  the  country  store  to  the  huge 
post-ofHce  buildings  in  the  great  cities,  that  means  the  Gov- 
ernment. Every  great  river  you  cross  is  under  the  care  of 
the  Government,  which  keeps  its  channel  and  its  harbor  clear 
of  silt  and  free  for  ships.  The  great  National  Forests,  which 
together  are  as  big  as  California,  and  five  times  as  big  as 
Virginia  or  New  York,  are  managed  by  the  Government. 
The  public  lands,  still  belonging  to  the  nation,  which  cover 
one  third  of  the  United  States,  are  under  the  care  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. For  all  these  things  the  Government  spends  sev'- 
eral  hundred  million  dollars  every  year.  This  money  is 
spent,  as  the  State's  money  is  spent,  to  make  this  a  safe, 
happy,  and  prosperous  country  to  live  in  —  to  protect  it, 
to  enforce  the  laws  made  by  Congress,  and  to  take  care  of 
the  great  property  which  belongs  to  all  the  people. 

Your  share  in  this  nation  is  like  money  in  a  bank.     You 


212  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

are  part  owner  of  this  country,  and  you  can  be  called  upon 
to  fight  for  it  if  necessary.  The  Government  officers  are  the 
officers  of  this  great  bank.  They  do  not  own  any  more 
money  in  the  bank  than  you  do.  They  only  take  care  of 
what  belongs  to  you.  It  is  your  duty  not  only  to  see  that 
they  are  good  officers,  but  to  help  make  It  a  good  bank,  for 
if  the  bank  fails  then  you  may  fail  with  it.  The  fact  that 
you  may  have  but  little  In  the  bank  makes  no  difference;  It 
is  yours  and  you  ought  to  take  care  of  It. 

All  this  is  on  the  selfish  side,  and  It  is  enough  to  show  that 
It  pays  to  take  a  broad  Interest  In  what  is  going  on  in  your 
own  country  —  the  country  in  which  you  live.  There  is 
another  side,  called  patriotism,  which  Is  not  selfish. 

Patriotism  Is  the  spirit  which  binds  all  good  Americans 
together,  and  which  Is  helping  greatly  to  make  the  world  a 
better  place  to  live  In.  Patriotism  does  not  mean  only  that 
one  must  fight  for  his  country  with  weapons  in  his  hands 
against  Its  enemies  from  without.  It  also  means  that  he 
must  fight  against  the  enemies  within  It. 

It  Is  not  necessary  for  the  enemy  to  carry  guns.  They 
need  not  be  men.  Greed,  and  extravagance,  and  waste  are 
very  real  enemies.  The  unnecessary  Injury  done  by  men  to 
this  country,  short  of  actual  loss  of  life,  has  been  many 
times  as  great  since  the  Civil  War  as  it  was  during  the  Cull 
War. 

It  does  not  require  warfare,  and  the  smoke  of  battle,  and 
the  clash  of  the  charge,  to  give  men  a  chance  to  be  patriots. 
The  opportunity  and  the  need  is  before  every  one  of  us  to- 
day to  serve  our  country  just  as  truly  as  If  we  served  it  by 
fighting  for  It. 


CHAPTER    X 

HOW    WE    CAN    HELP 


IF  all  this  waste  of  forests  and  soil  and  streams  and  mines 
and  game  really  means  to  us  individually  what  the  last 
chapter  said  it  meant,  then  it  is  our  plain  duty  to  do  all 
we  can  to  stop  it. 

Complaining  about  it  will  not  stop  it.  Saying  "  I  told 
you  so,"  after  the  forests  are  gone  and  the  mines  are  gutted 
and  the  soil  is  wasted,  will  not  stop  it  either.  Trying  to  stop 
it  is  a  good  deal  like  playing  a  game.  Like  every  other 
game,  we  are  not  likely  to  win,  unless  we  play  it  to  win. 


i  Knowing  the  Game. 

What  is  it  that  makes  the  winning  team?  Good  heads, 
strong  hearts  and  bodies,  and  school  spirit  are  part  of  it; 
but  a  big  part  is  knowing  the  game  through  and  through. 

Have  you  never  seen  a  big,  husky  football  team  go  off  the 
field  badly  beaten,  and  with  more  goals  agamst  them  than 
they  like  to  count,  simply  because  they  do  not  know  the 
game?  Such  a  team  is  always  being  penalized  for  off-side 
play,  and  half  the  time  it  does  not  know  where  the  ball  is, 
and  It  is  continually  losing  grounci  where  a  better  trained 
team  would  win  it,  simply  because  the  players  have  not 
thoroughly  learned  the  science  of  football. 

It  is  a  good  deal  the  same  way  with  the  fight  to  stop  the 
waste  going  on  all  around  us.  If  we  just  want  to  see  it 
stopped,  but  do  not  know  how  best  to  stop  it,  we  will  not 
be  of  much  use  on  the  team. 

213 


214  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

Some  of  us  might  go  and  tell  a  lumberman  that  he  was 
wasting  timber  by  careless  logging  and  that  he  ought  not 
to  let  his  old  cuttings  burn  up.  If  the  lumberman  listened 
he  would  probably  ask  us  how  we  knew  this  to  be  true.  If 
we  succeeded  in  interesting  him,  then  he  would  ask  how  he 
could  do  his  work  better,  and  how  much  it  would  cost  him, 
and  what  the  results  would  be.  If  we  cannot  tell  him,  we 
will  make  him  think  that  there  is  merely  sentiment  and 
some  foolishness  about  this  game  we  are  trying  to  play, 
whose  rules  we  do  not  even  know.  It  would  be  just  the 
same  with  the  farmer,  or  the  miner,  whose  methods  we 
criticised. 

You  cannot  teach  other  people  until  you  know  more  about 
the  thing  you  teach  than  they  do.  You  cannot  get  a  new 
point  of  view  accepted  by  practical  men  unless  you  present 
it  in  a  practical  way.  All  this  calls  for  knowing  the  game 
just  as  it  does  in  football.  If  we  do  not  know  the  game,  then 
we  might  as  well  stay  on  the  side  lines. 

We  cannot  learn  the  game  simply  by  watching  it.  We 
have  got  to  study  it  in  all  its  parts.  When  the  football 
coach  breaks  in  a  substitute,  he  does  not  tell  him  to  sit  on 
the  bench  in  a  sweater  and  watch  the  other  fellows  play. 
He  puts  him  to  studying  the  rules,  and  to  tackling  a  leather 
dummy,  and  to  learning  how  to  kick  and  how  to  catch  the 
ball. 

Learning  the  Game. 

There  are  two  big  ways  to  learn  about  the  waste  that  is 
going  on  about  you  wherever  you  li\e.  One  is  to  ask  people 
about  it,  and  another  is  to  go  and  study  it.  A  third  good 
way  is  to  read  what  other  people  have  written  about  it. 

Of  course  it  Is  hard  for  some  of  us  to  get  out  into  the 
open  country,  but  most  of  us  can  do  It  now  and  then,  and 
for  many  of  us  it  is  easy.      I  he  country  Is  a  very  interesting 


HOW   WE    CAN    HELP 


215 


place  if  you  look  at  it  not  just  as  a  picture  with  forests  and 
fields  and  streams  and  fences  and  houses  in  it,  but  as  a 
record,  written  as  clearly  as  if  it  were  written  with  a  pen, 
of  what  men  are  doing  with  the  land  in  which  they  live. 
Try  to  find  out  if  they  have  helped  it  or  harmed  it.  Find 
out  what  it  cost  them  in  either  case,  and  what  the  profits 
are. 


%^m  }'i\  n  .lilt  *'^  iiiihifiiM||^^^ 


Learning  the  game.     A  school  garden  is  a  good  place  lo  begin 


Do  not  try  to  study  too  many  things  at  one  time.  Study 
one  farm,  or  study  one  forest  —  even  if  it  is  only  a  wood  lot. 
Study  one  stream  to  find  out  what  damage  Hoods  did,  and 
whether  they  come  oftener  now  than  they  used  to  come. 
Just  keep  your  eyes  open  and  your  mind  open  at  the  same 
time,  and  when  you  find  something  that  is  particularly  in- 
teresting, write  it  down  and  store  it  away.  It  will  not  be 
very  long  before  you  will  know  more  about  those  things 
than  many  people  who  have  been  seeing  them  since  long  be- 
fore you  were  born,  simply  because  you  look  at  them  from 
the  point  of  view  of  all  the  people,  not  merely  of  a  few  of 


2l6 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


them,  or  one  of  them.     If  you  keep  that  up,  you  will  soon 
learn  how  to  play  the  game. 

Organization  Counts. 

Football  is  a  good  game,  and  we  can  learn  much  from  it. 
Have  you  ever  sat  in  the  grandstand  on  a  crisp  fall  day, 


From  photo,  copyrigltl,  iQio,  by  Underwood  and  Undenxiood 

Ramming  their  way  down  the  field 

and  had  your  heart  sink  deep  and  deeper  as  your  own  team 
went  down  to  defeat,  or  nearly  yelled  your  lungs  out  be- 
cause it  was  winning?  And  have  you  ever  got  together 
with  some  other  fellows  after  the  game  was  over,  and 
agreed  that  the  reason  was  that  one  team  or  the  other  lacked 
what  we  call  "team  work"?  It  is  a  iireat  siu;ht  to  see  a 
football  eleven,  outweighed  and  perhaps  even  outplayed,  boy 
for  boy,  ramming  their  way  down  the  field  again  and  again, 
simply  because  they  are  so  thoroughly  organized  that  they 
play  the  game  like  one  man. 


HOW   WE    CAN    HELP  217 

The  Railroad. 

Have  you  ever  sat  in  a  railroad  train  and  thought  not 
about  the  train  itself,  but  about  the  great  system  of  which  it 
is  only  one  small  part?  Of  the  thirty  thousand  miles  of 
track,  of  the  thousand  other  trains,  of  the  many  thousand 
employees,  of  this  huge  complicated  network  alive  in  all  its 
parts,  which  brings  millions  of  people  what  they  need,  hauls 
away  what  they  produce,  and  takes  them  where  they  want  to 
go?  Have  you  thought  of  the  difficulties  beyond  the  ordi- 
nary everyday  difficulties,  of  keeping  this  great  man-made 
machine  running  smoothly  and  steadily  and  efficiently? 
Of  the  snowstorms  and  the  landslides,  the  floods  and  the 
strikes,  the  sudden  call  to  move  heavy  crops  or  even  to 
move  an  army? 

What  makes  it  possible  for  the  railroad  to  do  its  work, 
and  meet  every  need  or  emergency  effectively  and  without 
the  waste  of  one  unnecessary  minute?  It  is  what  men  call 
*' organization  " ;  that  wonderful  combination  of  team 
work,  systematic  methods,  common  sense,  and  decisiveness 
without  which  real  efficiency  in  anything  which  men  do  to- 
gether, from  running  a  railroad  to  playing  football,  is  not 
possible. 

The  Police  Squad. 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  little  group  of  burly,  bluecoated 
policemen  boring  their  way  through  a  threatening,  muttering 
mob  —  a  mob  which  outnumbers  the  policemen  by  a  hun- 
dred men  to  one,  and  which  has  the  power  and  the  will  to 
do  ugly  work?  The  mob  snarls,  and  perhaps  a  few  stones 
are  thrown,  but  with  the  help  of  team  work  that  little  body 
of  men  splits  the  mob  up  into  fragments  and  drives  it  up  the 
side  streets;  and  almost  before  we  know  it,  there  is  an  empty 


I'lmlo  by  Julian  A .  Dimock 

On  the  Xevv  "^'ork  Ghetto.      I'hese  boys  are  bein^  taught  in  school  about 
the  waste  of  natural  resources,  and  how  it  may  be  prevented.    Are  \'ou.'' 


HOW   WE    CAN    HELP  219 

square  where  a  few  minutes  ago  was  a  seething  mass  of 
angry  men. 

When  it  comes  to  doing  things  with  our  heads  instead  of 
with  our  hands,  organization  is  no  less  necessary.  Of 
course,  if  confidence  and  high  purpose  are  laclcing,  organiza- 
tion will  not  win  the  same  light  \ery  long,  although  it  may 
win  it  for  a  little  while.  But  where  the  purpose  is  high  and 
the  end  is  practicable,  it  is  good  organization  which  turns 
the  stream  of  public  sentiment  into  the  pipe  line  of  con- 
certed effort,  and  runs  the  great  engines  which  turn  out  not 
electricity  but  results. 

So  it  is  with  the  great  movement  to  stop  the  waste  all 
around  us.  It  must  be  organized  like  the  football  team, 
the  railroad,  or  the  police  squad.  That  work  of  organiza- 
tion is  going  steadily  forward. 

There  is  the  National  Conservation  Association,  of  which 
Gifford  Pinchot  —  the  man  who  first  pointed  out  this  waste 
to  the  American  people  —  is  president;  there  are  many 
State  organizations,  some  of  them  exceedingly  active  and 
fruitful;  and  there  are  other  organizations  which  touch  very 
closely  one  field  or  another  of  this  question  of  waste.  It 
is  a  good  thing  to  find  out  about  them,  which  is  easy,  and 
to  join  one  or  more  of  them,  provided  you  are  prepared  to 
work  with  them,  for  such  members  are  the  only  kind  who 
are  of  real  use. 


rVe  Can  All  Help. 

Sooner  or  later  you  will  have  a  vote  which  you  can  use 
as  another  way  of  stopping  waste;  but  you  can  be  of  much 
help  to  yourself  and  others  even  before  that  time  comes. 

These  are  things  which  all  of  us  can  do,  no  matter  what 
line  of  work  we  expect  to  take  up :    We  can  study  this  ques- 


220  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

tion;  we  can  work  for  Its  right  solution  with  other  workers 
under  organized  leadership;  we  can  vote  wisely  on  It  later 
on;  and  we  can  see  to  It  that  vv^e  practise  what  we  preach 
In  anything  we  do  which  Involves  the  use  of  the  forests, 
the  soil,  the  streams,  the  minerals,  or  the  game. 


CHAPTER    XI 

THIS    IS    CONSERVATION 

WE  have  traveled  a  long  way  together,  through 
many  different  kinds  of  country  and  among  many 
different  kinds  of  people.  Everywhere  we  have 
seen  men  using  the  natural  resources,  —  in  the  forests,  on 
the  farms,  along  the  rivers,  far  down  in  the  mines,  and  on 
the  great  plains  of  the  West.  It  was  an  interesting  journey, 
and  it  has  taught  us  a  little  about  the  land  we  live  in.  But 
one  word,  which  we  have  all  heard  quite  often  in  the  last 
few  years,  has  not  been  used  in  this  book  until  now  —  that 
Avord  is  Conservation.  It  seemed  better  to  leave  that  word 
to  the  last,  and  for  us  to  go  about  our  country  together  and 
see  for  ourselves  what  Conservation  means,  instead  of  merely 
talking  about  it. 

So  after  all,  Conservation  simply  means  using  the  forests, 
the  streams,  the  soil,  the  minerals,  and  the  game  carefully 
and  wisely,  so  that  we  may  enjoy  them  and  so  that  those 
who  come  after  us  may  find  plenty  left  to  satisfy  their  needs. 

The  Ship  of  State. 

Suppose  you  were  a  passenger  in  a  great  ship,  staunch  and 
seaworthy,  with  coal  in  her  hold  for  a  long  journey,  and 
plenty  of  stores  and  food,  and  all  that  a  ship  needs  if  she 
is  going  to  carry  her  passengers  in  safety  and  comfort  to 
their  journey's  end;  and  suppose  you  were  going  to  travel 
only  a  short  way  in  this  great  ship  —  only  a  little  part  of 

221 


222  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

the  long  course  she  was  to  follow;  would  you  feel  that 
because  your  journey  was  soon  to  end  that  you  had  the  right 
to  waste  the  food  aboard,  and  to  throw  the  coal  hito  the 
sea?  Or  even  to  bore  holes  in  the  ship's  sides,  which  might 
let  in  only  a  little  water  before  you  left  her,  but  which  would 
let  in  enough  before  the  other  passengers  landed  to  send 
her  to  the  bottom? 

This  great  nation  is  like  that  ship.  We  enter  it  when  we 
are  born  and  our  journey  ends  when  we  die.  New  passen- 
gers are  constantly  coming  on  board  and  others  are  leaving 
her.  Some  enter  the  ship  rich,  but  are  poor  when  they  bid 
her  farewell.  Others  come  aboard  with  empty  hands,  but 
soon  fill  them.  Some  pass  down  the  gang  plank  unnoticed. 
Others  leave  aching  hearts  behind  them  at  their  journey's 
end. 

This  great  ship,  which  is  this  nation,  like  any  other  ship, 
must  face  the  perils  of  the  sea.  Mutiny,  shipwreck,  and 
attack  by  other  ships  are  the  worst  of  these.  A  true  course, 
a  wise  captain,  and  a  faithful  crew,  which  is  the  ship's  Gov- 
ernment, will  go  far  to  offset  these  perils.  The  rest,  fair 
weather  and  foul,  is  in  God's  hands  and  beyond  man's  con- 
trol. But  as  passengers  we  can  reduce  the  danger  still  more 
by  seeing  to  it  that  our  ship  sails  full  victualed  from  port 
to  port,  and  that  we  use  but  do  not  waste  the  stores  she 
carries;  and  when  we  leave  her  and  she  turns  her  bows 
again  to  the  open  sea,  that  she  has  a  no  less  ample  supply 
of  all  the  things  her  passengers  need  than  we  enjoyed 
aboard  her.  Is  not  that  little  enough  for  us  to  do?  If  we 
do  that  little,  our  ship  will  ha\c  nothing  to  fear  from  within, 
and  will  sail  her  true  course  throughout  the  centuries  without 
fear  of  any  other  ship  that  floats. 

What  will  happen  if  we  are  not  good  passengers?  Look 
around  the  world.  We  see  ships  flying  many  flags  and  each 
bearing   a   multitude   of   passengers    on   their   life   journey. 


/  '    »;  ptiolograinire  copyrii;lit.  iSyd,  by  A.  W .  Elson  and  Company 

With  every  white  sail  set 


2  24  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

Some  of  them  sail  proud  and  free,  with  every  white  sail  set. 
Others  float  so  deep  under  their  load  of  humanity  that  their 
decks  are  swept  by  the  following  seas.  If  we  went  aboard 
we  would  find  scanty  stores  and  passengers  hungry-eyed, 
and  an  anxious  captain  and  a  sullen  crew.  And  here  and 
there,  wallowing  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  we  would  come 
across  gaunt  derelicts,  deserted  long  ago  —  sodden  hulks 
which  drift  wherever  the  wind  carries  them,  a  menace  to 
other  ships  —  those  wrecked,  abandoned  nations  of  the 
earth. 

It  pays  to  be  good  passengers;  it  helps  the  ship,  which  is 
our  nation,  and  it  helps  the  passengers  themselves.  For  if 
we  are  not  good  passengers,  not  only  will  the  ship  suffer,  but 
we  as  well,  long  before  we  reach  our  journey's  end. 

A  Good  Fight. 

Like  most  great  movements  and  most  great  men,  Con- 
servation is  direct  and  easily  understood.  Like  all  great 
movements  it  has  its  enemies.  A  few  of  these  are  men  who 
do  not  yet  understand  what  Conservation  means.  Most  of 
them  are  men  who  would  rather  see  the  great  natural  re- 
sources used  wastefully  to  enrich  a  few  than  used  wisely  to 
make  life  happier  for  all,  now  and  to  come. 

The  fight  for  Conservation  is  a  good  fight.  It  is  the 
kind  of  fight  most  men  have  to  make  within  themselves; 
the  fight  in  which  the  wish  to  live  wholesomely  and  wisely 
and  usefully  struggles  with  the  wish  to  live  extravagantly 
and  unwholesomely  —  the  fight  whose  prize  is  the  man's 
true  life  and  all  that  goes  with  it.  Iliis  nation  is  making 
precisely  that  kind  of  fight.  On  the  one  side  are  great 
leaders  like  Gifford  Pinchot,  and  James  R.  Garfield,  and 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  who  stand  and  stri\e  for  a  no  less 
wholesome  life  on  the  part  of  the  nation  than  on  the  part 


THIS    IS    CONSERVATION 


225 


of  the  men  who  form  the  nation.     On  the  other  side  are 
men,  or  groups  of  men,  who  strive  to  make  themselves  rich 


Photo  by  Julian  A .  Dinuhh 

Some  nations  are  poor  like  some  children.  Countries  which 
have  wasted  their  resources  are  dependent,  and  must  buy 
elsewhere.   If  they  lack  money,  then  they  must  go  without 

by  guzzling  the   natural   resources,    regardless   of   the   for- 
tunes of  other  men  and  of  the  fortunes  of  their  country. 


c 
o 


t/3 


iJO 


THIS    IS    CONSERVATION  227 

If  the  men  win  who  oppose  Conservation  these  are  some 
of  the  things  their  victory  will  mean:  a  fair  land,  fertile 
and  kindly,  will  be  impoverished  and  marred;  its  forests 
wasted  by  fire  and  destructive  methods  of  lumbering;  its 
streams  mere  sewers  for  the  soil  wash  from  denuded  hill- 
sides; its  minerals,  which  only  the  ages  can  restore,  reduced 
below  the  danger  point  by  reckless  use;  the  fertility  of  its 
farms  so  lowered  that  they  offer  only  the  barren  hope  of  a 
mere  existence  to  those  who  till  the  soil;  a  nation  with  a 
great  beginning,  checked  abruptly  in  its  forward  movement 
and  its  growth  by  lack  of  the  substance  upon  which  to  feed. 

Now,  the  other  side:  —  What  if  the  great  leaders  of  the 
people  win?  A  fair  land,  made  still  more  fair  by  thrift;  a 
land  whose  great  strength  and  power  lie  not  merely  in  the 
length  of  its  purse,  but  in  the  natural  resources  which  give 
it  real  independence;  its  green  forests  clothing  the  moun- 
tains, and  so  cherished  that  they  furnish  perpetual  reser- 
voirs of  wood  for  men's  needs;  its  streams  clear  and  forest 
fed,  unfailing  sources  of  water  for  men  and  crops  to  drink, 
and  for  boats  to  float  upon;  its  minerals  wisely  used  against 
the  time  of  need;  its  soil  improved  by  honest  tilth,  and 
offering  a  comfortable  livelihood  to  the  jaded  dwellers  In 
the  towns;  a  nation  great  like  its  beginning,  wholesome  and 
strong  hearted,  traveling  onward  happily  through  the  un- 
numbered centuries  to  its  goal.     This  Is  Conservation. 


CHAPTER  XII 

AN  INVENTORY  OF  NATURAL  RESOURCES 

THIS  chapter  contains  a  summary  of  the  things  we 
know  about  the  extent,  the  use,  and  the  waste  of 
America's  forests,  lands,  waters,  and  minerals. 
Some  of  these  facts  hav^e  already  been  told  you  in  other 
chapters.  They  are  repeated  here,  with  other  facts  which 
you  have  not  yet  learned,  so  that  you  may  have  them  all 
together  in  one  short  statement. 

Forests. 

All  the  forests  in  the  world  cover  4  billion  acres,  or  about 
24  per  cent  of  the  world's  total  land  area.  Canada  has  the 
largest  forests,  Russia  comes  second,  and  the  United  States 
comes  third. 

Our  forests  now  cover  550  million  acres,  or  about  one 
fourth  of  the  United  States.  The  original  forests  covered 
about  850  million  acres.  About  90  million  acres  of  forest 
are  in  the  North,  150  million  acres  in  the  South,  130  mil- 
lion acres  in  the  Central  States,  100  million  acres  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  80  million  acres  in  the  Pacific  Coast 
States. 

The  total  amount  of  all  standing  timber  in  the  United 
States  is  about  2500  billion  board  feet.  Of  this  i;oo  billion 
board  feet  arc  hardwoods,  and  2000  billion  board  feet  are 
softwoods. 

The  United  States  Government  and  the  States  own  one 
fourth  of  the  forests,  which  contain  one  fifth  of  the  stand- 

228 


INVENTORY    OF    NATURAL    RESOURCES    229 

ing  timber,  or  about  500  billion  board  feet.  Three  fourths 
of  the  forests,  containing  four  fifths  of  all  standing  timber, 
or  about  2000  billion  board  feet,  are  privately  owned. 

Of  the  timber  in  public  lands  80  per  cent  is  in  the  National 
Forests,  7  per  cent  in  Indian  Reservations,  7  per  cent  in 
state  forests,  3  per  cent  in  the  unreserved  Public  Domain, 
and  3  per  cent  in  national  parks. 

Of  the  timber  in  private  hands  there  is  about  1700  billion 
board  feet  in  the  large  holdings  of  lumber  companies  and 
individuals.  Wood  lots  and  small  tracts  contain  the  re- 
maining 300  billion  board  feet,  as  well  as  about  one  and  a 
half  billion  cords  of  wood. 

The  yearly  growth  of  wood  in  our  forests  does  not  aver- 
age more  than  12  cubic  feet  per  acre.  This  gives  a  total 
yearly  growth  of  less  than  7  billion  cubic  feet. 

Nearly  all  our  native  commercial  trees  grow  much  faster 
than  those  of  Europe.  We  already  grow  post  timber  in 
twenty  to  thirty  years,  mine  timber  in  twenty-five  to  thirty- 
five  years,  tie  timber  in  thirty-five  to  forty  years,  and  saw 
timber  in  forty  to  seventy-five  years. 

We  have  200  million  acres  of  mature  forests  in  which 
yearly  growth  is  balanced  by  decay;  250  jnillion  acres  partly 
cut  over  or  burned  over,  but  restocking  naturally  with 
enough  young  growth  to  produce  a  merchantable  crop ;  and 
100  million  acres  cut  over  and  burned  over,  upon  which 
young  growth  is  either  wholly  lacking  or  too  scanty  to  make 
merchantable  timber. 

W^e  take  from  our  forests  yearly,  including  waste  in  log- 
ging and  in  manufacture,   23  billion  cubic  feet  of  wood. 

We  use  each  year  100  million  cords  of  firewood,  40 
billion  board  feet  of  lumber,  more  than  i  billion  poles 
and  fence  rails,  118  million  hewn  ties,  1500  million  staves, 
over  133  million  sets  of  heading,  nearly  500  million  barrel 
hoops,   3   million  cords  of  native  pulp  wood,    165   million 


230 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


cubic  feet  of  round  mine  timbers,  and  1250  thousand  cords 
of  wood  for  distillation. 

Since  1S70  forest  fires  have  each  year  destroyed  an  aver- 
age of  fifty  lives  and   ^o  million  dollars  worth  of  timber. 


Struggling  to  win  back  the  land.     The  dark  strips  are  young 
trees,  which  are  slowly  covering  an  old  burn 

The  young  growth  destroyed  by  fire  is  worth  far  more 
than   the  merchantable  timber  burned. 

I-orestry  is  practised  on  less  than  one  per  cent  of  the 
forests  privately  owned. 

One  fourth  of  the  standing  timber  is  left  or  otherwise  lost 
in  logging.     7  he  boxing  of  longleaf  pine  for  turpentine  has 


INVENTORY    OF    NATURAL    RESOURCES     231 

destroyed  one  fifth  of  the  forests  worked.  The  loss  hi  the 
mill  is  from  one  third  to  two  thirds  of  the  timber  sawed. 
The  loss  in  the  mill  product  through  seasoning  and  fitting 
for  use  is  from  one  seventh  to  one  fourth.  Great  damage 
is  done  by  insects  to  forests  and  forest  products.     An  a\er- 


Forestry  in  a  National  Forest.     Forestry  is  practised  on  less 
than  one  per  cent  of  the  forests  privately  owned 


age  of  only  320  feet  of  lumber  is  used  for  each  1,000  feet 
which  stood  in  the  forest. 

We  take  from  our  forests  each  year,  not  counting  the 
loss  by  fire,  three  and  one  half  times  their  yearly  growth. 
We  take  40  cubic  feet  per  acre  for  each  12  cubic  feet  grown; 
w^e  take  260  cubic  feet  per  capita,  while  Germany  uses  37 
cubic  feet  and  France  25  cubic  feet. 

We  invite  by  overtaxation  the  misuse  of  our  forests.  We 
should   plant,    to   protect    farms    from   wind   and   to    make 


232  THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 

stripped  or  treeless  lands  productive,  an  area  larger  than 
that  of  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  West  Virginia  combined. 
But  so  far,  lands  successfully  planted  to  trees  make  a  total 
area  smaller  than  Rhode  Island.  And  year  by  year, 
through  careless  cutting  and  fires,  we  lower  the  capacity  of 
existing  forests  to  produce  their  like  again,  or  totally  destroy 
them. 

The  condition  of  the  world  supply  of  timber  makes  us 
already  dependent  upon  what  we  produce.  We  send  out  of 
our  country  one  and  one  half  times  as  much  timber  as  we 
bring  in.  Except  for  finishing  woods,  relatively  insignifi- 
cant in  quantity,  we  must  grow  our  own  supply  or  go  without. 

By  reasonable  thrift  we  can  produce  a  constant  timber 
supply  beyond  our  present  need,  and  with  it  conserve  the 
usefulness  of  our  streams  for  irrigation,  water  supply,  navi- 
gation, and  power. 

Under  right  management  our  forests  will  yield  over  four 
times  as  much  as  now.  We  can  reduce  waste  in  the  woods 
and  in  the  mill  at  least  one  third,  with  present  as  well  as 
future  profit.  We  can  perpetuate  the  naval-stores  industry. 
Preservative  treatment  will  reduce  by  one  fifth  the  quan- 
tity of  timber  used  in  the  water  or  in  the  ground.  We  can 
practically  stop  forest  fires  at  a  total  yearly  cost  of  one  fifth 
the  value  of  the  standing  timber  burned  each  year. 

Lands. 

The  land  area  of  the  United  States,  excluding  Alaska  and 
the  insular  possessions,  is  about  3  million  square  miles.  Of 
this  area  oxer  half  is  arable,  and  a  little  less  than  half  is 
occupied  as  farm  land.  The  axerage  size  of  a  farm  is  146 
acres.  There  are  6  million  farms  in  the  L^nited  States. 
Including  the  families  of  farmers,  thirty  million  people  are 
engaged  in  agriculture. 


INVENTORY    OF    NATURAL    RESOURCES    233 

About  one  fourth  of  our  land  area  is  forest  and  one  eighth 
sparse  woodland  and  cut-over  land.  Two  fifths  is  arid  or 
semi-arid,  generally  requiring  irrigation;  one  twenty-fifth  is 
swamp  and  overflow  land  requiring  drainage.  Most  of  the 
dry,  wet,  and  sparsely  wooded  lands,  with  part  of  the  forest 
area,  is  adapted  to  grazing. 

About  two  thirds  of  the  land  has  passed  into  private  hold- 
ings. Of  the  original  1920  million  acres  there  remains 
325  million  acres  open  to  entry;  nearly  all  of  this  is  arid 
or  otherwise  unsuitable  for  settlement.  There  are  also  about 
235  million  acres  in  National  Forests,  National  Parks,  and 
other  lands  reserved  for  public  use. 

We  plant  nearly  50  million  acres  of  wheat  each  year, 
which  produce  one  fifth  of  the  world's  wheat  crop;  30  mil- 
lion acres  of  cotton  which  yield  about  12  million  bales,  or 
three  fifths  of  the  world's  cotton  crop  ;  and  100  million  acres 
of  corn  which  yield  two  and  a  half  billion  bushels,  or  four 
fifths  of  the  world's  corn  crop. 

We  have  71  million  cattle,  54  million  sheep,  and  56  mil- 
lion swine,  whose  total  v^alue  is  about  one  and  three  quarter 
billion  dollars.  The  poultry  in  the  United  States  are  worth 
about  137  million  dollars. 

The  average  yield  of  our  crops  per  acre  shows  such  slight 
increase  that  it  does  not  at  all  keep  pace  with  the  growth  in 
population. 

The  yield  per  acre  of  most  of  our  important  crops  is  far 
below  the  yield  in  older  countries.  We  grow  an  average  of 
14  bushels  of  wheat  per  acre,  while  Germany  grows  28 
bushels  and  England  32  bushels  per  acre.  We  grow  about 
30  bushels  of  oats  per  acre,  against  45  bushels  in  England 
and  47  bushels  in  Germany. 

Both  the  yield  per  acre  and  the  productive  farm  area  can 
be  greatly  increased.  Right  methods  of  farm  management 
will  at  least  double  our  crops;    and  we  have  75  million  acres 


234 


THE    LAND    WE    LIVE    IN 


of  swamp  land  most  of  which  it  is  practicable  to  reclaim  by- 
drainage,  and  many  million  acres  of  desert  which  can  be 
made  productive  by  irrigation.  The  injury  to  farm  crops 
due  to  insects,  diseases,  and  animals  costs  nearly  800  million 
dollars    a   year.      Most   of   this   loss   is   preventable.      The 


:'< 


Alany  million  acres  of  desert  can  be  made  productive  by 

irrigation 

farms  of  the  United  States  can  be  made,  under  skilled  and 
thrifty  methods,  to  grow  food  enough  to  support  a  popula- 
tion three  times  the  size  of  our  present  population. 


fVaters. 

The  source  of  all  fresh  water  is  rainfall,  including  snow. 
The  a\erage  year]\-  rain  I  all  in  the  United  States  is  about 
30  ii"!chcs.     Its  volui7ic  IS  c(]ual  to  ten  Mississippi  rixers. 

More  than   tliree  sixths  of  the  \early  i-aintall   Is   e\'apo- 


INVENTORY    OF    NATURAL    RESOURCES      235 

rated;    two   sixths   flows   into   the   sea;    the   remaining  one 
sixth  is  either  consumed  or  absorbed. 

At  present  only  about  13  million  acres  are  irrigated. 
When  all  lands  capable  of  being  irrigated  are  under  irriga- 
tion, they  will  support  a  population  of  at  least  20  million 
persons. 

Our  developed  water  powers  are  about  5  million  horse 
power.  The  undeveloped  water  powers  in  American 
streams,  whose  development  is  practicable  now,  contain  37 
million  horse  power. 

We  have  295  rivers  which  are  navigated,  and  they  have 
a  total  length  of  26,400  miles  of  navigable  water.  At  pres- 
ent their  use  is  greatly  impaired  by  lack  of  improvements, 
and  by  irregularity  of  flow  due  directly  to  the  destruction 
of  the  forests  upon  their  headwaters.  It  costs  from  one 
fifth  to  one  tenth  as  much  to  transport  freight  by  water  as 
it  does  by  rail. 

The  yearly  damage  by  floods  is  now  nearly  250  million 
dollars.  Ten  years  ago  it  was  about  one  fifth  as  much. 
The  chief  causes  for  this  greatly  increased  flood  damage  are 
forest  fires  and  destructive  logging. 

Nearly  800  million  tons  of  earth  are  carried  each  year 
by  the  rivers  into  their  harbors  and  into  the  sea.  The  dam- 
age to  our  farms  through  soil  wash  is  fully  500  million 
dollars  a  year.  The  chief  causes  of  erosion  and  of  silt  in 
the  streams  are  forest  destruction  and  poor  farming  meth- 
ods. Both  are  preventable,  and  both  now  entail  huge  and 
unnecessary  loss. 

Minerals. 

The  United  States  has  larger  mineral  resources  than  any 
other  nation.  The  value  of  the  minerals  mined  each  year  is 
about  2  billion  dollars,  and  65  per  cent  of  the  freight  traffic 
of  the  country  is  in  carrying  the  products  of  the  mines. 


I 


INVENTORY    OF    NATURAL    RESOURCES     237 

More  than  2  million  men  work  in  mines,  and  about  2 
million  more  are  employed  in  handling,  transporting,  and 
manufacturing  mineral  products.  Our  anthracite  coal  de- 
posits are  the  largest  in  the  world. 

The  known  supplies  of  high-grade  iron  ores  in  the  United 
States  are  about  four  and  three  quarter  billion  tons.  There 
are  also  estimated  to  be  about  75  billion  tons  of  low-grade 
iron  ore  which  may  hereafter  be  available  for  use. 

Our  waste  of  life  and  minerals  in  mining  is  appalling. 
During  the  last  ten  years  more  than  20  thousand  men  were 
killed  and  not  less  than  50  thousand  men  were  injured  in 
coal  mines  alone. 

The  yearly  consumption  of  coal  in  this  country  has  about 
doubled  every  ten  years.  Our  individual  yearly  consump- 
tion of  coal  is  now  about  5V2  tons.  For  every  ton  of  coal 
mined,  not  less  than  half  a  ton  is  wasted.  At  the  present 
increasing  rate  of  consumption,  and  If  the  waste  continues, 
our  easily  accessible  and  available  coal  supplies  would  be 
exhausted  in  a  little  over  one  hundred  years,  and  our  entire 
supply  would  be  used  up  in  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years. 

At  the  present  rate  of  consumption  our  high-grade  iron 
ores  would  be  exhausted  in  about  40  years,  when  we  would 
be  dependent  upon  low-grade  ores.  The  supplies  of  petro- 
leum and  natural  gas  so  far  discovered  are  not  expected 
to  last  more  than  100  years.  The  high-grade  phosphate 
rock  probably  will  be  exhausted  in  much  less  than  100  years. 


INDEX 


Agriculture,  Department  of,  104-107. 
America,  three  hundred  years  ago,   2- 

l8;  to-day,  19-34. 
American  Government  and  the  Indians, 

13,  14- 

Animals,  early  American,  3,  5;  and  the 
Forest  Service,  74,  75;  predatory, 
177-182.     See  Game. 

Antelope,  the,  129,  168. 

Aztecs,  story  of,  126,  127. 


B 


Black  Forest,  the,  35-40. 
Bonanza  farming,  iii,  112. 
Boys  the  best  farmers,  105,  106. 
Bronco  busting,  125,  126. 
Buffalo,  128,  129,  175. 
Bureau  of  Mines,  the,  152-155. 
Burros,  122. 


Cabinet  National  Forest,  the,  92. 
Cape  Henry,  lighthouse  at,  2. 
Cascade  Mountains,  the,  47-54,  66. 
Cattle  on  the  range,  129-13 1. 
Cattlemen  and  sheepmen,  129-13 1. 
Clearwater  National  Forest,  the,  91. 
Climate  of  America,  7. 
Coal,  what  would  happen  if  there  were 

none,  140-143;  mine,  in  a,  143-148; 

waste  of,    148-15 1,    237;   how  long 


It  will  last,  I 


33> 


237- 


Coeur    d'Alene,    National    Forest,    the, 

90. 
Congress,  the  American,  opponents  of 

the  Forest  Service  in,  93. 
Conservation,    the   movement,   vi,   vii; 

what  it  means,   221;  the  fight  for, 

224-227. 
Corn,  103,  104,  108. 


Corrals,  125,  126. 
Cortez,  story  of,  126,  127. 
Cotton,  100-102. 
Cowboys,  72-75,  123-127. 
Crops,  100-115,  233. 
Cypress,  the,  43. 

D 

Dams,  134-137,  191- 

Depot,  the,  of  the  Pennsylvania  R.  R. 

in  New  York,  19,  21. 
Desert  land  of  America,  1 16-138. 
Devil's  Club,  49. 
Douglas  fir,  the,  47-54. 


Electricity,  produced  by  water  power, 

189-193. 
Elk,  the,  168,  169. 

England,  the  food  supply  of,  113.  114. 
Europe,  the  handling  of  forests  in,  35- 

43- 
Evans,  Joseph,  154. 


Farmers,  and  farming,  99-115;  boys 
the  best,  105,  106;  sons  of,  how 
affected  by  waste,  208,  209. 

Farms,  good  and  neglected,  23,  26,  27; 
and  farming  land,  99,  100;  more 
and  less  productive,  100-115;  three 
classes  of,  112;  must  be  made  to 
yield  more,  11 3-1 15. 

Fires,  forest,  devastations  of,  23,  25,  47, 
54,  60,  62;  the  ranger  on  the  look- 
out for,  69-72;  how  they  start,  80- 
83;  fighting,  87-90;  dangers  of,  90- 

93- 
Fires,  in  mines,  151. 

Fish,  6,  199. 

Floods,  29. 


239 


240 


INDEX 


Food  supplv,  113-115. 

Football,  organization  in,  216. 

Forest,  nurseries,  39,  40;  rangers,  40; 
fires.    See  Fires. 

Forest  Service,  the,  vi;  what  It  is  doing 
for  the  nation,  73-7S,  9^,  935  oppo- 
nents of,  93;  services  of  GIfford 
PInchot  and  Henry  S.  Graves  In,  94; 
is  teaching  the  people  how  to  care 
for  their  forests,  96-98;  Its  two 
great  tasks,  98. 

Forester,  the,  94. 

Forestry,  the  reason  why  it  Is  not  prac- 
tised In  America,  95,  96;  practised 
on  less  than  one  per  cent  of  the 
forests  privately  owned,  230. 

Forests,  early  American,  3,  5;  of  to- 
day, 23,  25,  26;  results  on  rivers  of 
the  destruction  of,  27-31;  in  Europe, 
35-42,  156-162;  sprout,  in  river 
valley,  41,  42;  spruce.  In  Europe,  42; 
in  the  Southern  pine  belt,  43-47;  the 
Douglas  fir,  47-54;  the  North  Woods, 
54-60;  are  being  used  up,  63,  64; 
private,  94-96;  what  they  do,  96; 
work  of  Reclamation  Service  depends 
on,  137;  an  Inventory  of,  228-232. 
See  Waste. 

Forests,  National.    See  National  Forests. 

Furs,  175- 


Game,  American,  3,  5,  128,  129,  164- 
177,  179-183;  In  Germany,  159-163. 

Garfield,  James  R.,  131,  224. 

Government,  the  American,  and  the 
Indians,  13,  14;  and  the  Nation, 
211,  212. 

Graves,  Henry  S.,  94. 


H 


Heard,  Dwight  B.,  131. 

Holmes,  Dr.  Joseph  A.,  chief  of  U.  S. 

Bureau  of  Mines,  152. 
Hunting,    in    Germany,    162,    163;    In 

America,  163-177. 


Indian  Office,  the,  13. 
Indian  problem,  the,  13,  14. 


Indian  Reservations,  9,  13. 

Indians,  at  the  time  of  Columbus,  were 
friendly,  9;  later,  hostile,  9;  the 
number  of,  9;  Reservations  of,  9; 
a  burial  scaffold  of,  12;  treatment 
of,  by  the  American  Government, 
12-14;  ^^^  problem  of,  13;  employed 
to  build  the  Roosevelt  dam,  14. 

Iron,  how  long  It  will  last,  155,  237. 

Irrigation,  works,  132-138;  use  of 
rivers  for,  197,  198. 

•J 

Journey,  with  the  settlers.  16-18;  of  to- 
day,  19-33;  down  a  river,   185-191. 


Kaufman,  Ranger,  92. 
Knapp,  Dr.  S.  A.,  104-106. 


Lands,  an  Inventory  of,  232-234. 

Life,  waste  of,  in  mining,  148-151. 

Llghth'^use  at  Cape  Henry,  2. 

Log-jam,  a,  3 1. 

Log-loader,  the,  45,  46. 

Logging,  In  the  Southern  pine  belt,  45- 
47;  in  the  Cascade  Mountains,  47- 
54;  In  the  North  Woods,  54-60;  In 
the  National  Forests,  77-80. 

Lumber,  25. 

M 

Maine,  logging  In,  55-60. 

McGee,  W.  J.,  193. 

McKenzIe,  Murdo,  131. 

Means,  we  must  live  within,  32-34,  1 14, 

155- 
Merchant's  son,  the,  how  he  is  affected 

by  waste,  206-208. 
Mill,    power,    abandoned    for    lack    of 

water,  30. 
Mine,  coal,  in  a,  143-148. 
Mineral  soil,  28. 
Minerals,  6,  140,  235-237. 
Mines,   disasters   In,    149-15 1;   fires   in, 

151. 
Moore,  Jerry,  105. 


INDEX 


241 


N 

Nation,  the,  and  the  Government,  211, 

212. 
National  Conservation  Association  the, 

219. 
National  Forest,  a  rancher  in,  66;  the 

ranger    in,    67-72,    75-78;    on    the 

lookout  for  fires  in,  69-72,   80-86; 

grazing  in,  72-75;  fighting  the  fires 

in,    87-90;   the   Coeur   d'Alene,   90; 

the  Clearwater,  91;  the  Cabinet,  92; 

what  is  done  by  the  Forest  Service 

for,  92,  93;  opponents  of,  93. 
Natural    Resources,    an    inventory    of, 

228-237. 
Navigation,    use    of    rivers    for,    201- 

204. 
Newell,  Frederick  Haynes,  Director  of 

the  Reclamation  Service,  136. 
North  Woods,  logging  in  the,  54-60. 
Nurseries,  forest,  39,  40. 


O 

Organization,  value  of,  216-220. 
Oyster  beds,  199,  201. 


Paper,  spruce  growing  for,  in  Europe, 
42;  tree  cutting  for,  in  Maine,  57. 

Patriotism,  212. 

Pinchot,  Gifford,  94,  131,  219,  224; 
Foreword  by,  v,  vi. 

Pine  belt,  Southern,  the,  43-47. 

ripe  line,  a,  188. 

Police  Squad,  organization  in,  217. 

Power.     St'f  Water  power. 

Power  mill,  abandoned  for  lack  of 
water,  30. 

Prairie  dogs,  178,  179. 

Predatory  animals,  their  cost  to  us, 
177-182. 

Private  forests,  94-96. 

Public  Domain,  the,  1 15-127;  the  use 
and  abuse  of,  by  the  stockmen,  127- 
129;  the  range  is  being:  waited, 
129-1^2;  work  of  Reclamation  Ser- 
vice in,  132-137;  the  three  great 
problems  of,  138. 

Pulaski,  Ranger,  90,  91. 

PLdlman  car,  the,  21. 


R 


Railroad,  the,  organization  in,  217. 
Rain,  value  of,  7;  how  it  falls  on  the 

forest  and  on  the  bare  soil,  28. 
Range,    the    open,     1 17-129;    is    being 

wasted,    129-132;    wars,    130,    131; 

plan  for  regulation  of,  131,  132. 
Ranger  Pulaski,  90,  91. 
Rangers,    forest,    40;    in    the    National 

P'orests,  their  duties,  67-72;  on  the 

lookout    for    fires,     69-72,     80-86; 

fighting    the    fires,    87-90;    in    the 

Frankfort  Forest,  59-161. 
Reclamation  Service,  work  of  the,  132- 

138.    _ 
Reservations,  for  Indians,  9,  13. 
Rivers,   in  the  time  of  the  settlers,   6; 

results  of  forest  destruction  on,  27- 

31;  a  journey  down  a  river,  185-191; 

use   of,    for   water   power,    188-193; 

who   will   control    the   water   power 

of.'     193-197;  use  of,  for  irrigation, 

197-198;    domestic    uses    of,     198; 

use  of,   for   navigation,   201-204;   3. 

comprehensive  plan  for,   necessary, 

203-205. 
Roads,  108. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  224. 
Roosevelt  irrigation  dam,  the,  14. 
Royal  hunt,  a,  162,  163. 


Salmon,  199. 

Saw  mills,  25. 

Settlers,  America  in  the  days  of,  3-7; 
what  we  owe  to  them  7,  8;  a 
picture  of,  14,  16;  a  journey  with, 
16-18. 

Sheep,  121,  122,  129-13 1. 

Sheep  herders,  122. 

Sheepmen  and  cattlemen,  129-131. 

Ship  of  State,  the,  221-224. 

Slavery,    to    the    great    interests,    194, 

195- 
Southern  pine  belt,  the,  43-47. 
Springs,  origin  of,  28. 
Sprout  forests,  41,  42. 
Stock  industry,  127-132. 
Stumpage,  96. 
Swamps,  Southern,  43. 


242 


INDEX 


Taxes,  why  they  are  higher,  209,  210. 
Thenon,  Deputy  Supervisor,  91,  92. 
Thrift,  lack  of,  102,  107. 
Timber,  is  being  used  up,  63,  64;  sale, 

the,  77-80. 
Tunnel,  the,  under  the  North  River,  21. 
Turpentine  orchards,  44,  54. 


W 


Walrus,  199. 

Waste,  of  American  life,  32-34;  in 
American  logging,  54,  58,  60,  62,  63, 
64;  reasons  for,  95,  96;  of  the 
range,  128-132;  of  life  and  of  coal, 


in  mining,  148-151;  of  animals,  167- 
177;  of  fish,  199;  how  it  affects  all 
people,  206-212;  how  we  may  help 
stop  it,  213,  214,  219,  220;  how  to 
learn  about  it,  214,  215;  movement 
to  stop,  requires  organization.  219, 
220. 

Water  power,  6;  how  obtained  and 
value  of,  188-193;  ^vh°  ■^''^1  '^o^" 
trol?  193-197. 

Waters,  an  in\-entory  of,  234,  235. 

Wild  life,  156-183.    See  Animals,  Game. 

Woodcutters  and  woodcutting,  in  Eu- 
rope, 35-38;  in  the  Southern  pine 
belt,  45-47;  in  the  Cascade  Moun- 
tains, 51-53;  in  the  North  Woods, 
54-60;  in  the  National  Forests, 
77-80. 


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